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Wake County Libraries will serve more as centers of the community in the future, which would be a shifting role intended to meet public demand, according to a new master plan adopted today by the Wake County Board of Commissioners.
The $53-million plan, which focuses on services and proposes building eight new libraries and replacing four existing facilities in coming years, would provide for the increasing needs of the County's population from 2003-2010.
"Wake County Public Libraries have long provided outstanding service to our citizens and to our schools, and have played a critical role in our community," Commissioners' Chair Linda Coleman said. "This plan is an excellent blueprint for coming years to help us expand our role even further, providing higher levels of service and creating libraries as a center of the community."
Library Director Tom Moore said the plan, which has been developed over the last few years with the Library Commission, staff and public input, contains the following as guiding principles:
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Services to children remain the top priority.
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Recreational reading remains an important service.
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The library is a center of lifelong learning.
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The library is a community center.
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The library helps bridge the technology gap.
"For 15 years, our mission as a public library system has been to promote the love of reading and to foster the pursuit of knowledge among the residents of the County," Moore said. "We believe that this should remain our mission moving forward."
Moore said the Library System's two bookmobiles and 17 libraries, which include five regional facilities, are being stretched to their limits to deal with citizen demand in a County that has grown by 48 percent in 10 years. Wake's system is one of the most heavily used in the state, circulating more than 6.1 million books annually and providing more than 3,000 youth programs and 1,000 adult programs each year. The County also provides more than 600 computer terminals through the libraries, allowing users free access to the Internet.
The plan recommends that eight new libraries be built, including two regional facilities in the western and northeastern areas of the County. The others would be branch libraries, in areas such as Morrisville, Holly Springs, Rolesville, the North Hills area of Raleigh, in the southern part of the County near the Swift Creek area, and in the northwestern area of the County near Wakefield. (These are general locations; no exact sites have yet been determined for any proposed future facilities.) Moore said the plan also proposes to raise money from the private sector to leverage public funds.
"We plan to seek partnerships between private and public money, in hopes of making these projects come to fruition sooner," he said.
By adopting the plan, the Board made no commitments to future funding levels. Those will be decided as part of upcoming budget processes. County Manager David Cooke said that this plan would need to be balanced with all of the other facility and program needs of the County, such as jails or other public safety facilities, human services facilities and parks.
For more information on the new Library plan, contact Tom Moore at 250-1212.
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