BY BETH QUIMBY

Portland Press Herald

On a bleak rainy day, the homey smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts out of the reference room at the Kennebunk Free Library.

Inside the room, people sit at tables talking and nibbling on muffins and scones. Not a single hushing librarian is in sight.

That's because the librarians have turned the reference room into the Reference Room Cafe, where beverages, snacks, sandwiches and salads are on sale every day during library hours.

Library director Stephanie Marshall Limmer and her staff want people to chat.

They don't care about the crumbs.

They are even looking for ways of opening up the cafe to teens as a coffee house.

"The hope is the reference collection becomes more of a browsing collection," said Janet Cate, assistant director.

Kennebunk Free Library, which opened its cafe on June 17, is among a number of public libraries in the state going into the coffeeshop business as a new source of revenue and a way to entice customers away from the national book-store chains that have long offered such services.

"We want to feed the mind and the body at the same time," said Sharon Hawkes, administrative librarian at Auburn Public Library.

Auburn opened a café in 2007, but shut down last fall when the operator encountered some health problems. Library officials are looking for a new operator with the goal of reopening the cafe this fall.

The University of New England opened a cafe last year in the George and Barbara Bush Center of the Ketchum Library, the main library on its Biddeford campus.

The Windward Cafe has been a big hit with students, said Andrew Golub, dean of library services.

The second phase of the Portland Public Library's renovation project includes space for a café in the atrium area of the building. Thomaston Public Library officials are hoping to get permission to open a coffee shop in the next phase of its own renovation project, said Brian Sylvester, library director.

Other libraries offer variations of coffee shop services.

The Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick features a morning room where people may eat, drink and chat, although no food or beverages are served there.

The Blue Hill Library is kicking off a new Friday-night coffee house series this fall with live jazz, coffee and sweets.

The Kennebunk Free Library raised $10,000 to open its café, enough to equip it with tables, deep leather chairs and outdoor cafe tables and Adirondack chairs.

The 100-year-old library's old circulation desk now serves as the cafe beverage bar. Local businesses donated some of the furniture and wooden chess and checker sets.

A woodworker installed bar seating that matches the library's elaborate woodwork.

Kennebunk Free Library officials met with area businesses to make sure a library cafe would not be an unwelcome competitor. They chose Silver Tureen caterers to operate it from a field of three applicants. The library gets 10 percent of the gross sales, with a guaranteed $200 monthly minimum.

Cafe manager Melissa Mowery said she has been pleasantly surprised by business at the Reference Cafe Silver. Office workers drop by for lunch and the $6.99 lobster rolls. A book club has expressed interest in using the cafe for its book discussions.

Catherine Lindgren, library trustee president, said part of the goal of opening a cafe was to make the library more relevant and attract more patrons.

It appears that goal is being reached. Kennebunk residents Patti Owens and Kathy Drown said they rarely visited the library until the cafe opened up across from Kennebunk Town Hall, where they work out twice a week. Now they pop in after their exercise.

"This is nice, open and friendly, and the view is great," said Drown.