A $22,000 grant will pay for a strategic/space need assessment for the George H. & Laura E. Brown Public Library.

Brown Library will hire consultants to facilitate a strategic planning process that will result in a community needs assessment, a five-year strategic program/service plan and space-needs assessment for the library. This planning project will assess the library’s current services, physical space and strategically identify priorities for increasing alignment between what the library offers and what current and future library users need. This will allow the library to better serve the community and better explain its expansion plans.

Funding for Library Services and Technology Act grants comes from the federal government. The State Library of North Carolina decides which North Carolina libraries receive grants. The 2018-2019 LSTA grants in North Carolina total over $2.6 million, and include 53 awards for local library projects that advance excellence and promote equity by strengthening capacity, expanding access and community engagement in North Carolina’s libraries.

Expansion of the city-owned library has been a topic of discussion for more than a year. That discussion heated up after the city paid $80,000 for the former Carter house adjacent to the library and sought permission f rom the city’s Historic Preservation Commission to demolish the house, used that space for a possible parking lot to accommodate patrons of an expanded library. That proposal drew criticism from people who wanted to save the house.

The city is working with Preservation North Carolina to find a buyer for the house. Those critics, city officials and library board members are looking for ways that would allow the library to expand and preserve the house. Finding such a way would be an optimal solution of the issue.

Expanding Brown Library to meet the increased demand on its services — much more than providing books for patrons to read on the premises or check out to take home — is needed. This assessment will provide information to help the library board better formulate plans for expansion and how to pay for that expansion.

If that expansion and preservation of the former Carter house can happen at the same time, the more the better for the city.