With more than a century of serving its community behind it, Hallowell’s Hubbard Free Library and its trustees are trying to chart their path into the next century.

On Monday, the trustees will host a community forum on the future of the historic library, during which they hope to hear what services and events the community wants and expects from its library, and to find out what steps community members will be willing to take to support them.

They’re hoping to win broad support for the nonprofit organization, which has been been struggling financially.

“There was a stir when we closed the library last summer on Mondays,” said Ken Young, president of the board of trustees.

It was not necessarily immediately clear that the move was intended to save money, but with it, trustees were able to trim 23 percent in expenses.

Across Maine, libraries have evolved under a variety of structures.

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Lithgow Public Library in Augusta and Gardiner Public Library are departments of municipal government.

Hallowell’s library is a nonprofit venture that relies on its endowment, its annual fundraising and annual payments of $27,000 from the city of Hallowell for its support.

In the 2017 fiscal year, the library received only $8,500 from private fundraising. In the current fiscal year, that amount has more that tripled, but it’s unclear whether that level of giving will remain stable.

In past years, the trustees have tapped income from the endowment as well as up to 10 percent of the endowment itself, to pay the bills.

Now, Young said, the trustees are taking a more prudent line with the endowment by reinvesting income and cutting in half what they take out of it.

They also are asking the city to increase its annual support to $60,000.

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It’s not clear yet whether Hallowell elected officials will agree to do so.

“It’s obvious that’s a lot, and the budget is never fat,” said George Lapointe, councilor-at-large and chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee.

“One of the things I am interested in is the planning process the library is going through,” he said, including whether the city would take over the library.

“My long-term look at this depends on how their long-term planning goes,” he said.

In the current fiscal year, Young said, the annual fund has raised $30,000, but it’s not clear whether residents will continue support at that level.

Regardless of administrative structure, the bulk of library support comes from older permanent residents, while the bulk of the use comes from families with school-age children.

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“It’s hard to think about upsetting that dynamic,” Young said, “but it’s important to let the younger people know that if they want to use the library, they have to step up.

Over time, Young said, private fundraising started to decline for a number of reasons. People might have confused the library’s capital campaign, which raised money to replace the roof, among other things, with the annual campaign; or their attention may have wandered to support other projects.

Certainly, he said, the Great Recession of 2007 and its effect on investments was a blow, both to annual giving and to the library’s endowment fund, which at its height totaled more than $800,000. It’s now around $450,000.

The forum, which runs from 6:30 p.m., to 8:30 p.m., will be held in the City Hall Auditorium at 1 Winthrop St.

It will include brainstorming sessions about the role the library ought to play in providing access to books and information, providing a showcase for arts and culture or convening people for civic and cultural events. It also will include discussions about the organization’s financial challenges.

Young said the trustees will evaluate the information they’ve gathered.

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“My intention is to continue to communicate where we are and where we’re headed. I am not a sugar-coater and I am not going to make promises we can’t keep,” he said.

At the same time, he said, the trustees have agreed they are not going to spend the endowment down to zero. For one thing, it’s not prudent; and for another, the trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to be stewards of the endowment.

Jessica Lowell — 621-5632

jlowell@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @JLowellKJ


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