PORT HADLOCK — A slow economy convinced Jefferson County Library staff they should hold off on a building expansion proposal, but mounting usage is forcing the library’s hand, said the director.
“The library is in a period of unprecedented growth due to intense demand for our services,” said Ray Serebrin, director of the public library at 620 Cedar Ave., in Port Hadlock.
Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings ranked the county library in the top 5 percent in terms of per capita usage for libraries its size nationwide, and in the top 15 percent nationwide for people coming through the door, Serebrin said.
“We’re a busy old little place,” he said Friday.
In 2006, the library proposed a plan to nearly double its square footage to accommodate expanding stacks of books, growing meeting room usage and need for more seating for library patrons.
“We pulled back because of the economy,” Serebrin said. “But the need was becoming greater and greater and greater, and we had to make a move.”
Now, staff members are “crunching numbers” for an expansion of the 11,170-square-foot building they hope will give the library between 7,000 to 10,000 more square feet.
“We have got things ramped up again,” Serebrin said. “We’re beating up numbers to try to get the cost and square footage to optimum size.”
The proposed expansion would cost “somewhere in the range of $6.5 million to $8 million,” Serebrin said.
The staff tentatively plans to present a proposal to the board in April or May that would place a bond issue on the August ballot.
“Until we get the cost estimating down, we don’t know how much the bond issue request would be for,” Serebrin said.
A revamped study, with more details than one done in 2005, is being prepared, the library director said.
If a bond issue is placed on the August ballot and voters approve it, then “we hope to be ready to start construction in mid-year 2012” and be finished by the middle of 2013, Serebrin said.
Usage climbing
In the meantime, library usage is rising.
“Circulation has gone up about 7 or 8 percent a year uniformly over the last several years,” Serebrin said.
Overall circulation of books and other materials was 341,833 in 2008. It increased by 7.9 percent to 368,760 in 2009, the last full year of statistics.
In 2009, a total of 167,689 patrons walked in the door.
That’s a 21.8 percent increase over the 2008 door count of 137,651.
The library also counts the number of service transactions, everything from checking out a book to looking up information for a patron.
Those increased 8.6 percent from 2008 to 2009, from 740,484 transactions to 804,082.
New set of needs
“The recession has us responding to a new set of quite urgent needs,” Serebrin said.
“Job seekers need access to computers and technical know-how, so they can apply for jobs.
“Latchkey kids, whose parents are working, need homework and reading tutoring, and parents need our reading readiness programs so they can prepare their kids for school.”
That means that an increasing number of teens and younger children are using the library, Serebrin said.
“We hear that this is the place their parents have them come after school,” he said, adding that the library offers an after-school homework program as well as remedial reading program for preteens.
“It’s a safe place to be, and it’s also an increasingly busy place.”
The reading program has a waiting list.
“We just don’t have enough space to fit them in,” Serebrin said.
“It’s exciting and we love to have them here, but it’s creating a busyness and a space issue we haven’t had before.”
Support comes from the Friends of the Library in the form of free e-book readers, which will be pre-loaded with both fiction and nonfiction titles and available in 2011.
In addition, the library will offer free a public downloading station in the library, where patrons can download titles from the library’s extensive library of digital audio and e-books.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
