RUMFORD – Residents will likely have a chance to decide at the annual June town meeting whether to extensively renovate the 103-year-old Rumford Public Library, or build an entirely new structure.

Selectmen on Thursday opened bids for a conceptual design for a new library facility. The eight bids, ranging in price from $10,000 to $30,000, were passed to the Library Growth Committee, which will sift through them at a meeting set for 4 p.m. Monday.

About $15,000 from the Betterment Fund and the Rumford Public Library Trustees is available for the design work.

Several years ago, the committee contracted with Scott Simons Associates of Portland for a feasibility study of an approximately 4,000- to 6,000-square-foot renovation and addition project. Simons also devised a tentative design for a possible new building. The renovation/addition design will be used for comparison with a soon-to-be contracted detailed design for a new facility, said Kathy Sutton, chairwoman of the Growth Committee.

Karl Aromaa, library director, said the committee will narrow the field to three, then set up interviews. Once the engineer has been chosen, the trustees and the selectmen must approve the hiring.

Town Manager Steve Eldridge said the estimate on the renovation/addition in 2002 dollars was about $1.8 million, and rough estimates on a new facility, in 2004 dollars, run to about $2.7 million.

Sutton said about a half-million dollars could likely be found from individual donations and foundations. Additional donations would then be sought. Eldridge said grants would likely be written for more funding once the town decides what it wants. The remaining money would likely come from the town.

If residents decide to go after a new facility, it would be built at the former site of Stephens High School on York Avenue.

Library proponents and Simons Associates have argued that although the Carnegie library is a beautiful piece of architecture that suited the needs of 1903, new technology and the greater use of vehicles, among other things, require a new facility.