KAYSVILLE -- For Kaysville residents who support a city-owned-and-managed li-brary there is still hope, according to the vision of Paul Stokes, the city's library director.

Stokes presented his "Kays-ville City Library Development Plan" to the City Council Tuesday night in an effort to convince elected officials that the city is capable of managing a successful library. In his plan, Stokes, a former consultant for the Salt Lake City Library, attempted to address many of the council's concerns and reasons for looking toward the county for assistance.

He has developed five goals based upon these needs.

The first goal Stokes recognized was to "improve day-to-day operations." He said the library staff has worked hard to replace outdated technology and provide for more cost effective technical support. "It's been a success story," said Stokes.

The library director said he recognized the need for technology upgrades early on in his new assignment, which started last fall. Kaysville's library was trying to function by running new software on old hardware. He estimates that during the last six months of 2004 the library experienced one day of computer down time each week.

"This is a difficult situation and our patrons suffer," related Stokes as he expressed to the council the hardships involved in running a library without a reliable computer system.

The second goal in Stokes' vision is a work currently in progress, weeding the collection to "improve the physical appearance and quality of the collection."

"No matter what direction the council goes, whether with the county or the city, this is something that needs to be done," said Stokes.

Library staff are "weeding" items from the library's collection, books that are in poor condition, contain dated material, or are not in high demand due to the content.

Library staff expects that in the initial phase more than 10,000 books will be purged and sold to the public or discarded. Thanks to the $40,000 annual Blood Endowment from the Kaysville library board, the library will be able to rebuild the collection with around 7,000 new additions, Stokes said.

Weeding will be ongoing, he said. Library staff have been assigned to specific sections of the library to help maintain the collection. "Sometimes they have a very difficult time letting go of things, but it needs to be done," said Stokes.

By late next week, Stokes anticipates the library will have met its third goal of a Web site upgrade. Among other enhance- ments, beginning Monday, students should be able to access the library's Web site and use the World Book Encyclopedia in English and Spanish, Stokes said. Upon the Web site's completion, library patrons will also have the ability to request interlibrary loans and place books on hold through the Web site.

The fourth goal involves proposed renovations to the current library building. The renovations would include modifications to an outdated boiler to free up and make usable 600-700 square feet of space, and remodeling the building to meet ADA requirements. To move forward with this goal, Stokes said he will need support and funding from the Council.

Looking further into the future, Stokes presented his plan for eventual construction of a 15,000 square foot library, big enough to serve the needs of Kaysville's swelling population, with an estimated price tag of $2.7 million.