“It was indicated that three of the (school) board members did not support the move, so there was no need to go any further with the idea,” Carroll said.
Since 1998, the Trenton Library has been located at 21 E. State St., where it has an operational agreement with the city, which owns the building. The current facility has approximately 2,500 square feet of space and is open 52 hours a week. Its expenditures for 2011 amounted to $243,508.16, Carroll said.
According to Carroll, moving to the new high school, which will open in August, would have “nearly tripled” the library’s space to more than 6,000 square feet and would have increased the hours of operation to 66 per week for the same cost.
There were immediate concerns of safety for students being mixed with the public during school hours.
Carroll said library customers also voiced strong opinions about not wanting the library to move out of the city.
“I’m pleased that they voiced their concerns,” Carroll said. “We heard some strong opinions and it wasn’t strongly supported. It also showed that Trenton residents value having a library within walking distance.”
Carroll said she was not disappointed about not being able to move to the new high school.
“It was one of those ideas that just didn’t pan out,” she said. “If we had moved and people hated it, that would have made things worse than staying where we are.”
Physically altering the building to provide more space is not an option, Carroll said.
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