Natrona County Public Library “Exploring Options”

Officials with the Natrona County Public Library say that they're only exploring options on the future of Library's future.

Bill Nelson, Director of NCPL, says that a recent local newspaper article has led to confusion about the future of the library and the possibility of a new library being built.  "Sub-headings gave the impression that a campaign was underway, and that is categorically false," says Nelson.  "There is no campaign planned, there is nothing underway whatsoever."

Nelson does go on to say however that officials with NCPL and the Natrona County Board of Commissioners met for over an hour about the possibility of a library campaign.  "There's just some talk," Nelson says.  "Talk about 'gosh, what are the options in the future?' that's really what's going on right now."

Voters turned down funding for a new library facility in Casper five years ago and again last year in what Nelson calls "close" races.  But he says that a new facility is still something that should be on the minds of Casper residents.  "It should be on the radar screen of the community.  Libraries are important to communities, even if people don't use them.  It brings a lot of folks to the community that normally would not come here.  It also helps with literacy and life-long education that people have in all stages of their life."

The library's five-person board recently underwent some changes.  Two of the five members have left the board after serving full terms and have been replaced.  Nelson goes on to say that the library wanted to wait until the two new members were sitting on the board and up to speed, then begin the conversation about future campaigns for a new library facility.

"But there is nothing specific.  There's no time-table, there's no funding mechanism, there's nothing like that that has been really discussed at length, let alone determined," Nelson said Friday.