Cloquet Public Library Continues Towards Expansion

The library is working to get the funds it needs for the project

CLOQUET, Minn.- A central hub for the Cloquet community is doing its best to get a makeover.

The public library is working hard to get the money it needs to invest in an expansion project almost a decade in the making.

A seven thousand square foot expansion would cost roughly $2 million dollars. The library previously received a grant of $784 thousand dollars, but the city said they needed to raise a million for the council to pay off the additional costs.

Now the library has to go back to the council to ask for more funding, despite being short of amount they needed.

“Libraries have often been a community space and that’s becoming more and more a trend in libraries to be the place where the community can gather and exchange ideas and to gather information and so we need to keep up with that trend here in Cloquet,” library director Beth Sorenson said.

The funding would contribute to the library’s children and young adult programs and costs of new equipment for public use.

Library officials have the goal of finishing the entire project by summer of 2021.