NORMAN — Editor's note: This is the second in a two-part series exploring the challenges facing the Pioneer Library System and, more specifically, Norman Public Library. See yesterday’s story at normantranscript.com.

The city that led Oklahoma in establishing a library system has now fallen sadly behind.

Today, Norman Public Library ranks at the bottom compared to other Big 12 city libraries in space per capita and check-outs per capita.

The Pioneer Library System was the first multi-county system in Oklahoma. Established in 1958, Pioneer’s administrative services were housed in the Norman branch library from a very early date. The histories of the Pioneer System and the Norman Library are intertwined, in part, through Bill Lowry, who helped establish and provided leadership for both.

Lowry led library efforts in Oklahoma and served as the first Pioneer Library System director. In 1966, the Norman Library branch moved from its building on S. Peters Avenue into a new building on the corner of Webster Avenue and Gray Street. At the time, it was heady stuff ...

Now, 45 years later, the community has long outgrown the building on Webster that sits adjacent to the city hall complex.

And yet, it remains the primary library service point for Norman residents.

“The population of Norman has increased from 30,000 in the 1960s to 115,000 today,” PLS Director Anne Masters said. “The space was remodeled in the 1980s, but has had no expansion.”

The portion of Norman west of Berry Road now has a population equivalent to the entire city’s population at the time the main branch on Webster and Gray opened. Library officials say there is not enough parking space, not enough space for the collection needed to serve a city of Norman’s size, and not enough space for the many children’s and other educational programs hosted by the Norman Library.

This means Norman residents are greatly underserved.

“Norman has three main service areas,” said Leslie Tabor, Norman Branch Manager. “Main, east and west. People need service where they’re at.”

Location is key and while a proposed satellite site on the westside could help alleviate a little of the strain on the overtaxed main branch, it will not come close to solving the problem.

Here’s what the westside Border’s site will do for Norman’s main branch: When most of Pioneer’s administrative staff moves to the Borders location it will open up about 15 parking places. While that isn’t much — twice that amount would not be enough — every bit helps.

“There’s absolutely inadequate parking,” said Tabor. “Staff has trouble finding parking spots.”

Staff must make the effort to find parking, but when patrons can’t find parking spaces, some of them may hesitate to return to the library.

The movement by Pioneer staff will also help free up a portion of office space but won’t add anything to the public space of the current main branch facility.

“Staff is on top of each other,” Tabor said. “And there’s only one men’s bathroom.”

She said the amount of space vacated by Pioneer staff will help modestly, but without fully remodeling the office areas — an investment no one is willing to make at this point — the impact will be minimal.

The westside satellite also could provide a comparatively small amount of additional space to expand the library collection, but the proposed 5,000 to 7,000 square feet would be a specially focused selection and would not alleviate the need for more breadth in the overall main library collection.

In addition, a westside satellite could provide space for programs, but in a desperate effort to create more space and be more accessible, story time is already being conducted at Sooner Fashion Mall. Those existing programs will move to the Borders building in the future.

The westside branch, as vital as it could be to serving Norman’s populace, would be a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to the overarching need, say library officials.

The aging building at Webster and Gray was not made to handle the needs of modern technology. That building is maxed out electrically. And while an investment by the city to improve the HVAC system is helping to solve problems with extremes in heat and cold, there is much more that needs to be done.

Tabor said no one wants to pour more money into the building at this point.

Pioneer has helped along the way to the best of its ability, but while the arrangement between Norman and Pioneer is unique because of shared office space, PLS cannot show preference to Norman over its branches in other cities throughout the three county area.

Attempts to “rethink” how the space at Norman Library is used have not solved the problem. Because of limits in space, older items in the collection must be eliminated in order to keep the collection fresh.

Tabor estimated the collection should be twice its current size to truly meet the needs of a community with Norman’s population.

An attempt by the city to pass a bond issue in 2008 confused voters and many aspects of that plan failed by a narrow margin. What voters did approve was carpet and money to convert the current library into a senior citizen center.

Should the city build a new library, the old building will find a new use as a senior center.

The city did purchase property across the street north from the skate park at the old granary site. While that parcel of land isn’t enough to house a new main facility and adequate parking, there is other available property adjacent to it, said PLS Director Anne Masters.

Funding is always the issue when considering capital improvement projects. The task facing library staff and city leadership is to work with the public to create a vision the community will support at the main branch and at potential eastside and westside satellites.

“We’ll be working with citizens to develop ideas for the vision,” Tabor said.

“We want to be relevant in the communities where we are,” PLS Assistant Director Lisa Wells said.

“Every community in Norman deserves the same services but we’ll tailor them for the communities,” said Masters.