The East Bend Public Library is like a big library shrunk in a small space. Small but mighty, the library district says.

East Bend has got books. It’s got music and movies. It’s got computers for the public. There’s a meeting room. It’s offered story time. And more. For anybody on the east side, it can be a lot more convenient.

And it might be going away.

That space is the library district’s only leased space. The library district is working on building a new, big library in southeast Bend. There has been some discussion that maybe the district doesn’t need two libraries on Bend’s east side.

The Deschutes Public Library Board hasn’t decided the East Bend Public Library’s fate. But when the library board met Wednesday, we were struck by how library staff modeled the district’s financial future. The first model up for consideration “does not include operational costs of maintaining East Bend Library after Dec. 31, 2025.”

The cost of operating the east Bend library is about $800,000 a year.

We had to look back at the 2020 library bond because, as we remembered it, the east Bend library was not going away. It was going to get some enhancements.

Sure enough, in the Voters Pamphlet it said in the summary: “Repair, modernize and upgrade Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine, Downtown Bend and East Bend Libraries.” And then in the explanatory statement it said: “The East Bend Library, the newest and only leased building in the District, would receive minor upgrades to bring infrastructure up to the standards of the other libraries.”

It’s not clear to us when it will get those upgrades or if it will get them. When the library board got the presentation Wednesday, the improvement plans for the other libraries in the system all had dates for “Construction Start,” “Construction Completion” and “Opening.” The East Bend Public Library got “TBD.”

The library district is not out of money to run East Bend. It had $14 million in reserves for the 2021-22 fiscal year with total resources of more than $27 million. Projecting the financial future is a guessing game, and the district does have uncertainty about construction costs and staffing. Still, the district calculates it can continue to operate the east Bend library and have a projected reserve of more than $10 million for the 2027-28 fiscal year. That would be a decline in the level of reserves, which needs to be monitored. But it is a relatively high level of reserves — about 30%. The district’s board has directed staff to keep about 17% in reserves.

We like the idea of libraries being more convenient for more people, so we are among those who worry what it would mean if the East Bend Public Library gets shuttered.

The public needs to know: What do we get if we lose the east Bend library? What does the library want to do with that $800,000 a year?

Why is it better?

Yes, you could say the $800,000 would buy opportunity to do other things and/or deliver other library services. But if the board is thinking about closing a library, the public can’t reasonably judge that it could possibly be a good thing without knowing what they would get instead.