The City of Logan is deciding whether or not to increase property taxes by nearly $14 per house per year to build and maintain a brand new library.

“The library is bustling and busy and noisy,” said Karen Clark, assistant director for the Logan Library. “We’re always busy.”

There’s a shift taking place among many libraries across the country from a traditional library to more of a community center. Beyond books, the Logan Library provides classes, access to computers, arts and crafts programs for kids, and even community poetry nights.

Mimi Recker is a professor of education at Utah State University. She studies the shifting role that libraries play in communities and how people are accessing resources in an information economy. Recker said there is a growing intersection between information and education.

“Libraries are starting to rethink themselves as a community resource and as a place for community services,” Recker said.

Clark said if the Logan Library was rebuilt, it would take on that role as a community center. It would be more flexible and accommodating. But she said books will still be the library’s primary resource, regardless if that is a hardback or electronic book.

“Library patrons are the community and they are very important to us and we want to encourage and help them as much as we can,” she said.