Dear Rockport residents and neighbors,

I have good news.

On October 27, the Library Committee met to vote on program space. The total program space that was voted on and passed by a majority of the Library Committee is 8,750 square feet.

On November 5, I presented the Library Committee’s vote to the Select Board, which accepted the recommendation of 8,750 square feet of program space. The Select Board also voted to primarily consider as the location for the new library a site consisting of the library’s current location plus Memorial Park, across Limerock Street.

On November 17, the Rockport Select Board established an ad hoc Library Building Planning Committee and established its mission. Very soon, they will be seeking applications to populate the committee.

We are moving ahead.

We are engaged in the process to make important decisions about building design, costs and funding. The Library Committee has taken information provided by library professionals on what we are currently doing, planned for modest growth, whittled that down some and voted on program space. The members of the Library Committee are not architects. We want to pack as much program space as we can into a building that is as economical and efficient as possible.

The actual size of the building is not established, but it will be larger than 8,750 square feet to accommodate essential, unassignable, non-program space like entryways, wall thickness, bathrooms, stairwells, etc.

We can build a library that has the space to house what we are doing now and the flexibility to adapt to what we will need our library to be in the future.

I encourage all of you to join in the lively challenge of building a great library for all of us.

Cate Monroe is chairman of the Rockport Public Library Committee.