Portage Lake District Library Director Katrina Linde-Moriarty came to Wednesday’s Hancock City Council meeting to ask the board to begin thinking about a new library building in Hancock. Residents of Hancock and surrounding townships currently use the city’s library at Hancock High School, one of about a dozen such arrangements left in the state. (Houghton Daily Mining Gazette photo)

HANCOCK — The Portage Lake District Library’s director asked the Hancock City Council Wednesday to think about taking steps toward a new district library space separate from the Hancock High School.

The district library’s Hancock branch is in the Hancock High School library, said Director Katrina Linde-Moriarty. It is used by residents within the Hancock school district, which includes the city and three neighboring townships.

Because those residents do not pay into the millage used to fund the main branch in Houghton, they cannot make full use of the Houghton library without paying an extra out-of-district fee.

Having a municipality’s library in a school is rare. Only about a dozen such libraries are left in Michigan, all in the Upper Peninsula.

“You can’t even create them anymore,” Linde-Moriarty said. “They’re all grandfathered in.”

To alleviate funding and service woes for the Hancock library, the school district entered into a contract with PLDL to provide services there in 2018.

Last winter, the library and school district sent a digital survey to residents. In an open-ended feedback section at the end, many residents brought up having a library branch at the school.

They didn’t like it.

The public was uncomfortable going into the school. And parents of children at the school were uncomfortable with the public coming there.

Linde-Moriarty attended the city’s recent master planning sessions, where other residents were interested in discussing the future of libraries in Hancock.

“Taking my experience as a resident going to those, my experience professionally with the survey, I went ‘Alright, there seems to be some traction here,'” they said. “So I kind of wanted to open up the conservation.”

Where it goes from here is up in the air. The library may need to do a survey asking directly about a new building. And Linde-Moriarty didn’t want to discuss a millage until there was some sign residents would back it.

Linde-Moriarty suggested sitting down with City Manager Mary Babcock and supervisors of the townships within the district to discuss a potential millage request.

“I have no ask this time,” they said. “It’s just me coming and sharing what I’ve been hearing professionally, what I’ve been observing as a resident and seeing where we want to take the conversation next.”

The library has a contract with the school district, which Linde-Moriarty said costs the district about $100,000 a year.

“That money would be freed up to go right back into the school for operations, and the wider public through the millage would be funding the public library and all public services,” they said.

Councilor Whitney Warstler asked how much it would cost to start a new library branch. It’s still too early to say how large a millage would need to be, Linde-Moriarty said. A stand-alone building would cost about $400,000 in operations annually, based on property values Linde-Moritarty compiled for the district’s contract renewal with the school district last year. That amount does not include the cost of buying and remodeling a building.

For the Portage Lake District Library’s main library building in Houghton, the city took on an extra millage to construct its main library building in Houghton; the library pays rent to the city. That millage will expire in 2030, Linde-Moriarty said.

If possible, the library might look at one of the buildings being vacated by Finlandia University, Linde-Moriarty said. Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and convenient parking are also large issues, they said.

Linde-Moriarty said a library branch in the downtown could aid the revitalization of downtown underway with places such as the Orpheum and the expanded Keweenaw Co-Op.

“I have had conversations myself around town, and it seems people are very warm and welcome to the idea of especially having some sort of public service in the downtown area — a place where people can go and gather and not be on someone’s dime or have to pay for those types of services, to just exist in a space,” they said.

Lnde-Moriarty asked council members to think about the issue and to have conversations with other residents. Council members thanked Linde-Moriarty for coming.