There are many emotions the Lawrence Public Library evokes: joy in gaining new knowledge; pride in the community gathering place the library has become; fear that a librarian will whack me in the knee upon seeing my unpaid overdue book fines.

Warm and fuzzy, however, was not one of the emotions the last time Lawrence Public Library leaders appeared before the City Commission. Perhaps library leaders pulled out their copy of “The Art of the Deal.” (Unless the topic is hair, warm and fuzzy is not a chapter that author writes often.) Library leaders went into the City Commission’s budget hearing with a recommendation from the city manager for a $26,000 increase — a fraction of what library leaders sought. Library leaders, though, left the meeting with about $255,000 more.

Library leaders used the concept of leverage. For years the library’s board of trustees has been making a recommendation of how much funding the library should receive. But this year, library leaders produced an attorney who said the city’s library ordinance actually states the City Commission must agree to the library’s funding recommendation, as long as the amount is no greater than 4.5 mills of property tax. (My wife would make a fantastic library board member. In my household, she puts the “mend” in recommendation, as in mend is what you will need to do if you deviate from it.)

The library’s stance was contrary to what has long been believed by city officials, but ultimately the city attorney said library leaders were interpreting the ordinance correctly. Thus, the library got its full funding request, and city taxpayers got a bit of a property tax rate increase.

It is hard to blame library leaders for pushing the issue. They feel the library’s staff is grossly underpaid, and city funding in general is inadequate. When I spoke with library director Brad Allen a few days ago, he was pretty vocal about it.

“I would say by far this is the poorest funded library I have worked in,” Allen said. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t do more to get more funding.”

Allen said library leaders decided to push the issue this year. He said the law has been on the books for about 35 years and never has been “properly honored.” But he also concedes the action seems to have “opened a huge can of worms.” Indeed, I think commissioners and the public are concerned about non-elected library board members — they are appointed by city commissioners — having such control over tax rates.

There was talk by city commissioners of a review of how the library is governed. I would suggest that is a good idea, and could become an even better one if commissioners and library leaders allow themselves to think big.

The library has a big, new and rather expensive building in downtown. Maybe it is time for the library to think about being bigger in another way. Perhaps it is time for the Lawrence Public Library to become the Douglas County Public Library.

Every day there are quite a few people who don’t live in the city limits of Lawrence — and thus don’t pay the city-imposed library property tax — who use the library. In the parlance of the day, there is no “extreme vetting” that is required to enter the library. Many of those users live in the rural parts of Douglas County or perhaps in the smaller communities of Eudora and Baldwin City.

Eudora and Baldwin residents pay a tax to support their communities’ smaller libraries. Folks in rural Douglas County, depending on where they live, may pay a tax to the Northeast Kansas Library System. Some of those tax dollars get returned to the Lawrence Public Library in the form of a grant, but Allen made it sound like the grant dollars weren’t a great deal for the Lawrence library.

“They help the smaller libraries a lot more than they help the larger libraries,” he said.

So, would it be a good deal if there was one tax charged throughout Douglas County that supported one library system?

“That is a fantastic question,” Allen said.

Allen is ready to at least study the idea of a countywide library system.

“It is something we should get together with the county staff and County Commission and the city staffs, and examine what the tax bases look like,” Allen said.

A countywide library system could take on at least a couple of different looks. One would be a true countywide system that would include the smaller communities of Eudora, Baldwin City and Lecompton. Both Eudora and Baldwin City already have their own tax-supported libraries — Lecompton’s is a volunteer-run facility, I believe — so they probably would have to be assured that a countywide system would include branches in those communities. Even that assurance may not be enough to get those communities to go along. They may view it as too much of a loss of local control. If so, a countywide system could include just the city of Lawrence and the unincorporated parts of Douglas County. The smaller towns would keep their existing systems.

Under either system, the benefit to the Lawrence Public Library would be that it would have a large tax base to rely on for support. The result for taxpayers likely would be that the city’s mill levy would go down, but the county’s mill levy would increase. A big unknown is the amount of the increases and decreases.

The biggest unknown is how the public would respond to all of this. The library has great support from the public, but some taxpayers may be miffed that the library feels like it is underfunded. Lawrence voters approved a tax increase to build the new library, and library leaders at the time said a half-mill increase in their budget would take care of operating costs. Allen wasn’t the library director at the time, and he told me he believes the half-mill estimate was too low in retrospect. Those sorts of shifts drive some taxpayers crazy.

The idea of a countywide system of anything creates the potential of a rural/urban split. There’s long been a fear of Lawrence running the whole county. I get that, but I also understand that government leaders have an obligation to be as efficient as possible with taxpayer dollars. Are there efficiencies that could be gained by having one countywide library system?

I’m not qualified enough to answer that question. I don’t know whether a countywide system is the way to go. But it sure seems like now is the right time to have a serious discussion about it.

I know of one taxpayer who would prefer they have that discussion rather than one about library fines.