Expansion plan
There’s a big 6.4-acre field filled with weeds and dirt next to Liberty Lake’s little library. It seems hard to believe that someday that field will turn into a new building that will hold meeting rooms, media centers and tens of thousands of books. But then again, Liberty Lake has done it before, turning an idea and a hope into a pile of books, one step at a time.
“We have certainly entered the mainstream of public libraries in the state of Washington,” said librarian Pamela Mogen, who since she was hired in late 2003 has seen the library’s collection expand by thousands and grow into a neighboring space.
The 18,000 or so books, movies, audio tapes and magazines fill the shelves to their tops in the library, located in a modern office building just off the main commercial drag in the fledgling city of 5,000 residents. And lots of people use the place, too.
About half the city’s residents own library cards, while most libraries are lucky if they can get 20 percent of their population to sign up, Mogen said.
That, coupled with a healthy budget and nearly 29,000 checkouts last year, Liberty Lake is on its way to becoming what Mogen calls “a library of public record.”
Growing a collection on its own
As part of her duties, Mogen visits libraries around the state. She’s seen similar libraries get their starts, and she’s seen established systems expand.
Recently, the Moran Prairie Branch of the Spokane County Library District opened, and after just one visit, Mogen could tell the building was suited to be a branch, and not a stand-alone library.
“It’s never going to have to have certain things always available at the librarian’s or the public’s fingertips,” she said. “It’s a branch; things can be housed someplace else and brought in.”
Unlike a branch library, Liberty Lake is working on its own without a large collection to share among branches. Librarians call that a “library of public record,” and though Liberty Lake is a ways off from, say, a downtown Spokane-sized facility, they are working on their collection and aren’t limited to what they have on hand.
Using an inter-library loan system, a patron can request virtually any book and have it sent free to the library for checkout. The books usually arrive in three to five days. There are no residency requirements for the library, so even people outside the city limits can get a library card without paying a fee.
The library’s budget also allows for book purchases as they come available.
But there would be far fewer books if it weren’t for a little hard work 10 years ago by a few area residents.
A small start
When Jim and Joy Peck moved into their house on Liberty Lake in 1995, before the city north of them was incorporated, Jim brought with him a large collection of books amassed while serving 28 years in the military.
Their collection of several thousand books was housed in their home’s basement, and neighbors from around the lake could stop by and checkout books. When meetings were held to look into creating a city of Liberty Lake, Joy Peck joined five other people and formed a nonprofit organization to raise money to get a library started.
At the time, the group wasn’t sure whether the library would become a Spokane County branch or if it would become a municipal one, Peck said.
For Peck, who received her first library card at age 6 in Indianapolis, a separate building was always the goal.
“I’d always envisioned a Carnegie library with stone on the outside and concrete steps and marble,” Peck said. “Well of course that’s a little bit much for our library but I always had a vision that it would be a free-standing library with all the amenities.”
As a member of the library’s board, Peck watched as the library moved out of her basement and into space donated by local developer Jim Frank in a new office building. For her, helping form the library was like raising a child.
In late 2003, the city took over the library and it broke away from the county’s system, establishing officially a self-sufficient Liberty Lake Municipal Library.
“When I left the board and it became a municipal library, it was kind of like sending your child off to college,” Peck said. “And it was in great hands. It was a wonderful experience.”
Ideas for the future
For more than two years Mogen, herself a published author (see related story) and librarian for about 30 years, has been the Liberty Lake librarian, one of two full-time paid positions.
The paid staff has expanded to six and last December the library opened a new children’s section separated from the main library by another office.
Mogen has seen the collection of materials grow, as well as her budgets. Though the rent is no longer free in their office space, tax revenues generate more than enough to make the payments, plus save a little at the end of the year.
“It’s more a lack of room than a lack of funds that’s keeping us back,” Mogen said.
The library receives money from a property tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, said Arlene Fisher, Liberty Lake director of finance and administration. That means this year the library received $308,303. When combined with money earned from late fees, the library runs a budget of $310,598 for 2006. Any money earned or not spent by the end of the year goes into a fund to help pay for a new building down the road.
And that building is just what’s on Mogen’s mind.
Liberty Lake purchased 6.4 acres of land near the current library site with the idea of using it as a community campus, said Mayor Steve Peterson.
In time, that means the library may move out of its current cramped location, where books are “shoehorned” in, Mogen said, into a new building with all the amenities of a modern library.
“We’re still in the dreaming stage,” Mogen said. Mogen and several colleagues have been tossing around ideas for a building, one that would also serve as a community center and provide room for more books, a computer lab, media centers and meeting rooms.
“We are looking for a facility that will allow us to adapt to the future,” Mogen said. “Lots of exciting things are going on technology-wise that are changing libraries and opening new possibilities and functions.”
Until then, Mogen will keep working in Suite 130 at 1421 N. Meadowwood Lane. She’ll keep her eye on the steadily growing collection, and she’ll keep holding popular summer reading programs. But most of all, she’ll keep doing what she loves.
“This has been an absolute dream job,” she said. “I couldn’t have dreamed of asking for all of the wonderful things that have happened in this job.”