Published December 13, 2010

Oakville eyes joint library facility

RACHEL THOMSON; The Chronicle (Centralia)

OAKVILLE - The Timberland Regional Library District is working with community groups in Oakville on plans to build a library on a parcel of school district-owned land, according to Timberland communications manager Jeff Kleingartner. The land is adjacent to the school and U.S. 12.

Library district representatives, city officials, members of the Friends of the Oakville Library and others met last month to discuss building a new library. More meetings are tentatively scheduled for next month, though no dates have been finalized, Kleingartner said.

The proposed building would be about 7,000 square feet, Kleingartner said. The library would take up about 3,000 square feet, and the remaining 4,000 feet could be used to house a community center and a museum.

A museum in Oakville would be a new venture, Oakville Chamber of Commerce President Bill Scholl said. He said Oakville does not have a designated community center, but the local VFW hall has been used for community functions.

The library district is working with an architect on building plans, but a price on the library won’t be determined until plans are drafted, Kleingartner said. He added that funding likely will come from grants and donations.

Kleingartner said the conceptual plans should be drafted by spring, though there is no timeline to build the new library. He said that once the new library is built, it will be up to the city to figure out what to do with the space vacated by the current library.

Oakville city clerk and treasurer Amy Durga said the City Council has not had discussions about what to do with the current library should a new one be built.

Oakville’s current library shares space with the city’s municipal offices. The library itself is about 2,000 square feet, Kleingartner said.

The new library would be open for public use and would be open for students in the Oakville School District to access during the day, Kleingartner said. The new library would be the first in Timberland’s five-county district, which includes Thurston, to have a joint agreement with a school.

“Students would have access to much more information, computers and skilled library staff who can help them do research and find things,” Kleingartner said.

The current library is open 24 hours a week. Kleingartner said it’s unclear if the library district would hire additional staff members for a new library. He said its hours could be modified so students could access it during and after school.