The Orcas Island Library is celebrating 20 years in our current building. We invite everyone to visit us to see displays and archives celebrating our past. As part of our celebration, we are scheduling a special series of speakers on a wide range of topics that we think will elicit strong community interest. Please look at our website (www.orcaslibrary.org), or ask any of us at the Library for more details.
We’re also looking ahead to how we might best serve the community for the next 20 years. Ten years ago, and then again five years ago, facing increased usage in an increasingly constrained space, the Library explored the possibility of an expansion. We needed to put that effort on hold, mostly due to financial limitations. Now we are looking at it again. Why?
For many years, we have been providing the best possible resources and services without asking for any property tax increases. We also have been strengthening our community partnerships, for example, to improve after-school services to children; working with Orcas Island School District to develop stronger school library services; improving people’s ability to find out what’s available and what’s happening locally; supporting individual interests in independent learning; and offering direct services at locations such as the Senior Center.
It’s now clear that our space can’t meet all the needs people would like us to respond to, such as independent and group study space, quiet reading areas, more room for young adults to get together in a healthy environment, and space for online study and business use. We’ve determined this through surveys, observation, direct community feedback, and a community needs assessment last summer.
Twenty years ago, residents of Orcas Island committed their time, money, and talent to build a beautiful public library. As we move forward, the Board invites you to participate in conversations about the costs and benefits of an expanded library building that will serve both current needs and those of the next generations. As always, our goal is to continue to provide the best and most cost-effective library services possible for our community. Please contact Phil Heikkinen, Library Director, by phone, at 360-376-4985; email, pheikkinen@orcaslibrary.org; or mail, OIPL, 500 Rose Street, Eastsound WA 98245.
Alan Lichter, President
Phil Heikkinen, Director
The Library is apparently proposing undertaking new construction and committing to increased future operating costs for more space in order to provide “independent and group study space, quiet reading areas, places for young adults to get together in a healthy environment, and space for online study and business use,” most of which far exceeds the core library mission.
This is a puzzle. Not only is the provision of such space an example of unwarranted “mission creep” for the library, but also the village has many areas available for such functions (the Funhouse Commons, school district and rec district, for example) and a large number of existing buildings in the village are current empty and unused.
Last time I checked, Orcas had the third highest operating expenditures per capita in the state; the third highest operating personnel costs per capita in the state; and the fourth highest collection expenditures per capita in the state, already. We are about to be asked to approve a series of County tax levy lifts and likely new special tax districts. State and federal deficits are so large as to be difficult to wrap our heads around, and funding from them those governments is drying up. And it feels like half the commercial spaces in the village are vacant. It just does not seem like a good time for the library to be seeking a construction and operating levy lift to pay for new construction and expanded services that do not even qualify as library services. We should begin to analyze multi-purpose use of existing taxpayer-supported (or even empty commercial spaces) spaces for functions such as group meetings and online and business training, if a defined need exists. Unless, of course, the Library has already identified donors willing to cover the construction and operations costs associated with such expansion.
I agree entirely with Peg Manning.
I encourage anyone interested in the Library’s mission to read our current Board-approved statement, approved after our most recent community-based planning process: https://www.orcaslibrary.org/LRP.html. Funding a possible expansion through private contributions would be the Library’s goal.
Great news!
I wonder why we need more space when we are paying less then $20,000 in new material every year yet the pay scale for 4 librarians and staff is over $500,000.00 .
I mean really the library is open less than 50 hours a week. Why do we allow such a small library to fund that much from my taxes to so many employees. Only a small fraction of over $600,000.00 given last year was used for the actual library. Why should we need bigger space . May be and don’t get he wrong I love the library but we are in hard times. Why not cut 300,000.00 down to one librarian and see if that amount can build a new space. In less than 3 years that would be almost a million we could spend on oh say books or even a new addition.
I’d be happy to share accurate budget figures with anyone who’s interested. For example, the current budget allocates almost $80,000 for the collection, and about $329,000 for salaries. We’re open 53 hours per week, including Sundays from noon to 3 pm. Basically, we think it is important to respond to a need to better serve library users, and to really understand the community’s interests.