PRIEST RIVER — Books will always be an important part of the West Bonner Libraries.

However, with construction set to start on expansion of the Priest River Library, it’s going to be even easier for the library to offer West Bonner County residents even more. In addition to the internet access, interlibrary loans, music and movies that the library already offers, a new commercial kitchen will soon allow residents to “check out” the space to prep everything from their salsa to their baked good, said WBL Director Katie Crill.

“[The other day] I was thinking, ‘Whose hair-brained idea was this,’” Crill said, before laughing lightly. “Well sometimes you just have to take responsibility for your own hair-brained ideas. But I’m really excited that we’re going to put in a commissary kitchen — it’s the highest inspected commercial kitchen that we could put in.

Panhandle Health District officials told the library district they would able to do anything we want with food in that room. “Which means people who want to make salsa for sale could make it for a nominal fee and that kitchen would be inspected for them to make their canned goods or baked goods legally,” Crill said.

She noted that the commissary kitchen will allow library staff to take advantage of USDA food programs for local youth, hold food preservation and cooking classes with hands-on activities and be a space that caterers and food truck operators can rent to prep their food.

The expansion was approved as part of an $800,000 plant facilities levy approved by voters in November 2016. The library levy was designed to fund expansion of the Priest River library branch, by replacing a 1960 single-wide trailer attached to the north side of the building with a 3,600-square-foot addition. The levy could also provide for a larger, permanent structure for the Blanchard library branch, which would allow the district to cease spending $900 monthly in rent for a 1992 modular that was leased years ago as a temporary facility.

The mini-incubator kitchen is the latest in an effort to expand the number of services that West Bonner Libraries offers to its patrons. Crill said the new meeting space being added as part of the project will hopefully give agencies such as the Idaho Department of Labor a space to hold classes and meet with residents in western Bonner County.

After the mills closed in 2008, use of the library jumped 41 percent as residents came in to use the facility’s computer to search for work and more.

“I was trying get the Department of Labor to come over here and they were ‘We’ll teach them to use a computer but they’re going to have to drive to Sandpoint and this is where my whole services thing started,” Crill said. “They didn’t have gas money to go to Sandpoint and I didn’t have a very big staff at that time and we did the best we could helping people learn how to use a computer good enough to apply for their unemployment.”

The new meeting space will give the agencies a spot to land and she said she’s beginning to talk to the agencies to see if they can create a schedule where they can come to the Priest River Library once or twice a month to meet with people. It’s a hardship for many residents to drive to Sandpoint when they face a choice of using money for gas or for necessities like food or heat.

“Maybe we can alleviate some of that and bring some services over here,” she said. “My program people also are excited because they’re going to have more room for all of their stuff and we can expand [things]. Live & Learn has been really successful.”

The new portion of the library will go across an existing lot which is being used as a park. The smaller space will be transformed into a courtyard, which allows the library to expand adjacent to the next building. The levy covers the cost of the library expansion and the basic structure. Crill and the library staff are in the process of writing grants and seeking donations for the interior to cover bookshelves and other items.

While some question whether people still use libraries any more, Crill said their numbers are going up every year. The addition gives them “people space” to do everything from sort books patrons order through the Cooperative Information Network, a cooperative of 30 or so libraries in the region to the addition of much-needed meeting and private study rooms.

“What I’m hoping with those is that we can bring in some of the agencies from Sandpoint because vocational rehabilitation comes over every now and again and uses our meeting room, and different government agencies and such,” she said. “Having those private rooms would give us a lot more flexibility and my goal has always been to bring more services to our side of the county. “

With a shortage of high-speed internet in the area, Crill said local residents often bring their computers and equipments to the library to download updates and take advantage of digital library offerings such as downloadable books, audiobooks and e-books and music through Freegal.

While the library isn’t adding computer stations in the expansion project, the additional space and charging stations will allow residents to use their own devices to connect to the internet.

The old section of the library will become the courier processing area, adding more room to work with hundreds of books coming into and leaving the library as part of the CIN. The new community room will have a capacity of 99, with a total four meeting rooms available for public use.

Leading the expansion’s design is architect David Wilde of Wolfe Architectural Group out of Spokane, whom Crill praised as wonderful to work with and make the community’s vision to reality.

Caroline Lobsinger can be reached by email at clobsinger@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolDailyBee.