Vancouver's looks like a Roman creation, with its columns lining a city block. Seattle's love-it-or-hate-it Rem Koolhaas-designed building shoots 11 storeys into the sky, a polygonal glass and steel structure that dominates its neighbourhood.

Victoria's main library?

You'll find it shoehorned into an office complex on Broughton Street, its entrance off a covered courtyard that can be hard to find. Inside, the collection is scattered around 48,000-square-feet over two floors, with limited meeting space and offices plunked in corners. It's been there since 1982, and library boards have talked about a new downtown library almost as long.

While hope for a new building has fallen off the radar in recent tougher economic times -- particularly with plans for a new downtown bridge, mandated sewage treatment and a new hospital tower hitting taxpayers --Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said it's still a "top priority" for the city. He's even got a site in mind -- Centennial Square beside city hall.

"I can't think of a better place. It could be a great civic centre, it would have great accessibility and is close to transportation," Fortin said.

Whether there is the political will and money is the question.

A 2003 study called Great Libraries Make Great Cities estimates that a purpose-built, 121,000-square-foot library -- which, the report said, is the minimum size for a city of Victoria's population -- would cost $30 million, not including the price of the land.

The Greater Victoria Public Library board has commissioned a facilities master plan. CitySpaces Consulting is talking with library users and municipalities to come up with a 15-year plan for the library system.

That report is expected in January.

"The elephant in the room will be the Central Library," said GVPL chairman Paul Gerrard.

Would Victoria want one large signature building, or have a smaller main site with more satellite libraries in the community? Would they want to pay for either?

Add to that the "Byzantine politics" created by the way the Greater Victoria Public Library is governed and it could be a long time coming, said Sandra Anderson, a former chief librarian.

The library board serves 10 municipalities: Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal, Central Saanich, Colwood, Langford, the Highlands and Metchosin. Board representatives on the board are largely councillors or mayors from each municipality. They tend to look out for what is best for their own communities, Anderson said, not the region as a whole.

"There is no incentive because of the political makeup of the board," she said. "Whatever discretionary money there is, politicians would rather spend in their own backyard. They are rewarded for that, rather than for taking a regional view."

It's difficult enough for the region's diverse municipalities to agree on sewage and transportation. With the arts or libraries, it's even tougher, Anderson said.

Former library board chair Neil Williams dates the decline of Yates Street to when the library moved out of the Carnegie building at the corner at Yates and Douglas.

In Seattle and Vancouver, businesses around the new libraries have prospered because of the increased foot traffic, he said.

"People don't know what they're missing until they see a purpose-built library and how beautiful and useful it can be for the community," Williams said.