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Library board: Liberty Lake library at capacity; staff urges sitespace for expansion in master plan
Summary
The Library Board and director told the City Council on June 17 that the library has reached space capacity for physical collections, meeting rooms and public computers, and asked that facility planning factor those constraints into any planned municipal facility or Town Square project.
Library trustees and staff presented the 2024 annual report to the council on June 17 and outlined capacity constraints that staff said are already limiting service. Library Director Jandy Humble and Trustee Jennifer Chase reported 7,460 library cards in 2024, 69,575 visitors and about 119,000 total checkouts. Humble said the library’s physical collection stood at 22,256 items and the town’s population is now about 14,100.
“The library is at the point where for every book we bring in, we need to take a book out of the collection,” Humble said, and added the building has “nowhere to expand.” The board told council that the library provides two books per capita under current holdings but cannot grow the physical collection without additional square footage.
Trustees also highlighted operational pressure on meeting and study spaces. The library’s meeting room is zoned for 39 people but staff reported routinely accommodating far more users: “We consistently, every single day, will have 75 people in that room that’s built for 39,” staff said, and patrons are regularly parking beyond the library lot to attend programs. The facility has four public computers that are heavily booked, staff said, and lack of power infrastructure prevents adding more public workstations.
Staff described additional services the library provides, including a proctoring service that “has to be done by a formal librarian” and staff-run tech appointments, mobile printing, and summer reading programming. The library also participates in the statewide digital collection (Libby); staff said their annual payment to participate was about $12,000 and individual e-book licenses can cost $100 to $150 per title, which affects collection budgeting.
Trustees and staff urged the city to consider those operational constraints in any municipal facilities master planning and to account for additional meeting spaces, teen space, parking capacity and power infrastructure in proposed Town Square or library relocation plans. Council members asked for further data on how many meeting-room reservations generated the visitor counts and requested the library produce reservation-size statistics for a later report.
Council did not take action at the meeting but directed staff to include library needs in the ongoing facilities planning process and to return with more detailed usage data for consideration in the 2026 budget process.
