Branch library would enhance city's offerings

Abilene's public library fortunes may soon be branching out.

While the Citizens Library Review Panel continues to study future options for the main downtown library facility, the city is moving forward to enhance what library services it can offer this side of building or renovating a new primary site.

The City Council is expected to approve, perhaps at this morning's meeting, a branch library to be located in a storefront in southwest Abilene. Such a satellite location would be a noteworthy addition for the community.

The branch library concept has generated almost as much local interest as a new main facility. In other West Texas cities such as Lubbock and Midland, branch libraries have been highly popular, creating more of an increase in library usage than anticipated. That means residents' needs are being met, which is what we expect government to be doing.

Branch libraries work because they put library services closer to the people who want to use them. And they work because libraries nowadays function as information centers, not merely as warehouses for books.

Here's how a branch library might work. Let's say a student who lives on the south side wants to research a subject, either for an assignment or just for pleasure, but doesn't find it convenient to make her way to the downtown library. She could stop by the branch site, perhaps located in the Mall of Abilene, access the subject on the library's computer, survey the library's holdings and identify a book or two she'd like to read. She could request those books, which would be delivered to the branch the next day for her to pick up.

A branch site would also likely contain some materials for children and duplicate copies of best-seller books in high demand by adults.

Abilene can try out a branch library without a huge financial investment. A little more than $300,000 is estimated for start-up and first-year operational costs. This year's city budget, which runs to September, already allows $200,000 for library improvements that haven't been made.

With six months estimated as the time needed to prepare a branch site, city officials hope to see one open by year's end. It would mark a significant advance in our municipal government's responsiveness to making the lives of those in the community more convenient and more fulfilling.