Town councilors took the first step toward renovating or expanding Thomas Memorial Library June 9, authorizing the expenditure of $75,000 from two private funds to develop a plan for library improvements.

The town has hired a Milton, Wis.-based architectural firm, Himmel & Wilson, that specializes in libraries, to do the work, said Library Director Jay Scherma.

Himmmel & Wilson’s clients have included the Texas State Library and public library systems in Virginia and Massachusetts.

The Thomas Memorial Library Foundation contributed $25,000 for the study, and another $50,000 came from a fund in memory of Marian and Barbara Chase.

Last renovated in 1985, the library is running out of space not because Cape’s population has increased significantly but because library science has changed drastically in the past 20 years, town officials say.

For example, the demand for an audio-visual collection has increased, and public-use Internet computers are in constant demand. Some collections have been downsized and others moved to inconvenient locations to make room. The town historical society collection is relegated to two small rooms in the basement.

Finding space in the library is particularly challenging because it is constructed out of two former one-room schoolhouses, with a maze of twisting hallways, odd doorways and half-sets of stairs connecting them.

Scherma said Himmel & Wilson, working with another firm, Casaccio Architects of Haverton, Penn., will assess the library’s space and programs, and the community’s needs, and come up with recommendations and conceptual drawings by Jan. 1, 2009. The Thomas Memorial Library Study Committee will make its own report, based on the architects’, to the Town Council by May 1, 2009.

Scherma said the consultants will be working with focus groups made up of townspeople and will also offer a Web-based survey. The consultants have been asked to plan for what the town’s needs will be 30 years in the future.

The Council and library trustees have not decided yet how much should be spent on the library improvement project, or where the money would come from.