Lincoln considers library’s future Land purchase could aid expansion

LINCOLN – To hear Director Lisa Auriemma tell it, the Lincoln Memorial Public Library is a growing success story.

More than 35,000 items were checked out to patrons, six new public-access computers were installed, 178 hours of educational or entertainment programming were created and the summer youth reading program was full – all records or high points, Auriemma said Wednesday.

Yet the success has a downside. The library’s 28,000-item collection can’t expand because there’s no room for new bookshelves. The library lacks a community meeting room, has almost no room to hold events and no space in which to add to its archival collection, Auriemma said.

“The lack of space is the hardest thing. These days, libraries act more as community centers, offering educational programs and entertainment opportunities for their patrons, and right now because of the space limitations, it’s very hard to do those things,” she said Wednesday.

That eventually will change under a plan the Town Council, which oversees library operations, will put in motion Monday when it considers whether to use the library’s private endowment, the MacGregor Fund, to buy an adjoining property at 29 West Broadway for $85,000.

The plan entails the town hiring a property management firm to oversee renting the Corro house to a business or tenant and putting the proceeds back into the fund, Town Manager Glenn Aho said.

That way, the property, which has been vacant for several years, will be maintained and the endowment fund can grow enough to eventually pay for another library expansion onto that property, Aho said.

“There are no plans now, but should a future addition be considered, land would be our largest concern, because the current library covers all the existing developable land,” Aho said. “With this purchase, land will no longer be a problem.”

Using the fund to buy the land, and depositing rent proceeds back into the fund, helps ensure that no taxpayer dollars need be spent on the library expansion, Aho said. It also helps make an eventual library expansion much more likely.

“We’re using the money for exactly what the MacGregors would have wanted it to be used for,” he said.

Mr. and Mrs. Roderick J. MacGregor of Lincoln established the fund in the 1940s to help maintain and expand library operations, Auriemma said. The fund paid for the library’s last expansion in 1966.

The Corro house is a 1.5-story Cape that sits on a half-acre lot, said Ruth Birtz, the town’s economic development assistant and a zoning enforcement officer. It is about 1,500 square feet and is in good shape.

“It’s dated, but it’s very nice,” Birtz said of the property. “It could be used for the library if the town wanted to use it for that.”

Birtz will have the property appraised and seek requests for proposals from property management companies if the council OKs the purchase, she said.

Councilors have indicated they approve of the idea.

A library expansion could cost as much as $800,000, and the fund has about $220,000, so no expansions are likely anytime soon, Auriemma said. She doubted the library could use the house itself except perhaps for storage because it is awkward to assign staff to.

Library workers will start making long-term plans for expansion once the sale goes through, she said.