The West Tisbury library has always been the overachieving runt of the Island library system, keeping its voracious readership sated despite humble resources. Designs for a vastly expanded library unveiled on Monday call for a facility that may finally accommodate that book-hungry community by the spring of 2014.

In 2007 the West Tisbury space needs committee recommended that the library double in size by 2020 to accommodate projected population increases. West Tisbury claims the highest circulation on the Island but the second-smallest facility. The new design would expand the current building from 6,031 to over 13,000 square feet.

Architects Conrad Ello and Matt Oudens from the Boston firm Oudens Ello unveiled their design scheme in the current library’s reading room. In October the architects presented three possible designs for the new library in a public forum. Since then a consensus formed, both among the community as well as the state granting body, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, on an H-shaped design that would largely maintain the building’s current facade while doubling the building’s size.

The architects noted many advantages to the design. For one, it is the preferred design of the state library board, which will award grants in June, and pending a successful application by West Tisbury, could cover up to half of the library’s price tag. The design also boasts the lowest cost of construction — Mr. Ello estimates it to be in line with early project estimates of $5.1 to $5.5 million — as well as the most compact footprint of the proposals.

Mr. Ello highlighted the efficiency of the new design which will take advantage of natural light and employ the latest in green building techniques.

“We all have aspirations for a building that’s going to be easy to maintain and cost less to operate,” he said, adding:

“We’ve done some preliminary energy models of the existing envelope and had some workshops to really start to look at how we deal with building performance and create the tightest envelope we can.” To that end, Mark Rosenbaum from the West Tisbury firm South Mountain Company has joined the design team.

Mr. Ello and Mr. Oudens envision a building with efficiencies built into every component, including quadruple glazed windows and a photovoltaic array on the building’s south-facing roof. It will be the first town building to seek a LEED certification.

Among other additions the new library would house a dedicated program room for approximately 70 people. Monday night’s meeting illuminated the need for such a room as the 40 or so attendees leaned against bookshelves and spilled out of the library’s current reading room. The library would also feature two reading gardens, one accessible from the southern side of the top floor, off a children’s wing, and the other on the regraded northern side of the building accessible from the formerly dank and cramped basement.

One area of concern did arise during the presentation: the availability of parking. The state library board will require 40 dedicated spots for the library. There are currently 43 spots in front of the library, but the lot is shared with the Howes House. To accommodate the state requirement Mr. Ello said the library would need to find 58 spots overall. The problem loomed large to West Tisbury selectman Richard Knabel.

“Parking is always the tail wagging the dog on a project like this,” he said. “It would really be a shame if parking somehow jeopardized the approval process from the state, because it’s already a bit of 10 pounds in a five-pound bag out there.”

Mr. Ello said his team could carve out as many as 52 spots out of the current lot, and perhaps more, while additional off-site spots could provide a solution.

West Tisbury resident Kate Warner argued against an analog sprawl of the town library in an impending digital age, zeroing in on the profusion of adult stacks in the new design.

“I think this library is very nice and I think it’s too large,” she said. “I think that over time we’re going to use books less and less. People are Kindling, people are iPadding.”

West Tisbury building inspector and former library trustee Ernie Mendenhall disagreed. “I don’t think you can have too many books,” he said.