RUMFORD – The Library Growth Committee learned Thursday night that it has the right to hire an architect to produce a conceptual design for a new building.

Selectman Chairman Jim Rinaldo said the town’s bylaws or charter allows the committee to choose whomever they want to do the work.

At an earlier selectmen’s meeting, the majority of the board attending it denied the library committee’s choice of an architect, with some questioning the need for a design at all.

The committee had chosen Scott Simons Associates, a southern Maine firm that had conducted other design work for the committee. The initial bid was more than the committee had set aside for the work, but on Thursday committee member Rep. John Patrick, D-Rumford, said further discussions with the firm dropped the figure to $13,500 after deleting portions of the bid that would have provided more work than needed.

The growth committee has a $10,000 grant from the Betterment Fund and another $5,000 from the Rumford Public Library Board of Trustees to do the work.

Patrick, who said he previously opposed a plan for a new library, changed his mind after seeing how libraries around the state serve as community centers and places where families can do things together.

“They aren’t just places to go to read books,” he said.

Residents in a straw poll last month preferred to spend just enough money to bring the existing library up to code.

However, committee Chairwoman Kathy Sutton said a series of meetings to explain the reasons the town needs an updated facility had not yet been presented.

Residents will have the final say in a vote in June. In the meantime, those informational sessions will soon begin.

She said at Thursday’s board meeting that the committee will keep the selectmen up-to-date on each step taken.

Patrick said a new library, if approved, would take six to eight years to complete, and that money used to build it would likely come from grants.

In response to a question by Selectman Greg Buccina suggesting that the committee discuss a possible merger of the Rumford and Mexico libraries into one facility, Sutton said she would broach the subject with the neighboring town.