photo by: Shawn Valverde

The bookmobile is parked outside the Lawrence Public Library on Friday, July 26, 2024, ahead of the library's celebration of the 10th anniversary of its building.

The Lawrence Public Library is seeking proposals for work to develop a comprehensive facilities master plan, with the library’s director hoping it can guide the library to serve the public more equitably.

Brad Allen, the Lawrence Public Library’s executive director, presented a request-for-proposals document to the library’s Board of Trustees during its regular meeting this month. The library requests proposals from qualified firms to “assess the current state of our library facilities, identify future needs and recommend strategies” to make sure the library is meeting its needs.

Allen told the Journal-World he had been working in Lawrence for 13 years and the library had not created a facilities master plan during that time. Allen said the staff found the last time the library did one was in 2005. Those recommendations eventually led to the renovation of the current downtown location, 707 Vermont St., which opened in July 2014 after voters in 2010 approved an $18 million plan to fund it which included a property tax increase, as the Journal-World reported.

Allen said that kind of expansion is not what the library is thinking of, but now that the building has been open for 10 years, it seemed like a good time to see if the current library’s facilities are doing enough to meet the needs of the town.

“We were curious to get a sense of where we’re at,” Allen said. “It was time to do this work.”

As part of the scope of work, the library is hoping the firms involved with the plan will review libraries in communities with similar populations and comparable university towns to understand how it stacks up. The plan would use that comparative analysis with other data to create a master plan that includes “strategies for addressing space needs, including potential renovation, expansion or new construction” like branch locations.

Allen said the discussion of adding a branch is not something the system is “gunning for,” but that the library is interested in seeing what outside groups think. Allen noted some libraries in cities with populations similar to Lawrence have branches, and the location of the library in the northeastern corner of the city could make access harder for people on the western side of the city. A key question with the development of a master plan is does having one location “provid(e) equitable access to the community?” Allen said.

Allen said the library’s foundation was interested in covering the funding for developing the master plan, so it likely won’t cost taxpayers anything. Seeing the recommendations that come from a master plan will provide some ideas for the library’s future, but Allen said it also comes down to what the community wants and has the capacity to support financially. The end goal coming from the master plan is to ensure the library is reaching the entire community.

“My goal is to make sure everybody (in Lawrence) has the best access to the library as they can,” Allen said.