Library aims to help city with economic recovery
FAYETTEVILLE — Administrators of the city’s public library say they know what kind of resources the newly expanded facility has available to the community.
It’s a matter of getting staffing and programming to meet demand and help the city recover from the covid-19 pandemic.
An editorial published Jan. 1 from the Washington Post, titled, “The golden age of public libraries dawns again,” listed Fayetteville’s library among the best in the world. The piece says an abundance of new or newly renovated libraries have opened the past couple of years. In addition to books and other physical materials, the libraries offer workforce training, audio and video studios, event spaces, teaching kitchens and handson learning for children — all of which are features included in the city’s library.
The editorial lists Fayetteville among libraries in Haikou, China; Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada; Oslo, Norway; Manhattan, N.Y.; and Washington D.C.
David Johnson, the Fayetteville library’s executive director, said he and his fellow staff members take the expansive facility’s role in the community seriously.
“It’s confirmation that what we wanted to do for this community is being adopted worldwide,” he said. “We aren’t just a lone wolf out there doing something that others don’t believe in.”
THE ASK
Administrators have asked the city for $2.3 million in federal American Rescue Plan money distributed evenly over three years. The goal is to help residents and business owners recover from the negative economic impacts of the pandemic by fully realizing the library’s potential in workforce development, according to an application letter to the city.
The city was awarded $17.9 million in American Rescue Plan money. Cities can spend the federal aid money for four purposes: responding to the pandemic or its negative economic impact; replacing revenue loss; providing premium pay for essential workers; and improving water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.
Library administrators hope to hire 12 people to staff its Center for Innovation and a teaching kitchen programmer to provide free certification training for patrons in a variety of fields.
The Center for Innovation has simulators for airplanes, backhoes, tractor-trailers and forklifts. Upgrades to software and equipment, as well as additional personnel to provide training, would enable the library to issue certification in operating those vehicles, Johnson said.
The center’s audio and video production studios also provide patrons access to state-of-the-art media equipment. Additional software and staff are needed to create certification opportunities, according to the letter.
Additionally, the library wants to start a program that would provide certification and job training to aspiring chefs and culinary workers at its teaching kitchen. Federal aid money would help get the program going, the letter says.
The request also includes the buildout of a computer science and coding laboratory with equipment and an instructor for courses.
The aid would provide enough money over time while the library boosts revenue from its event center and deli, Johnson said. From there, the library could sustain the positions and costs on its own, he said.
“We’re eager to go. We’ve been ready for about four to six months,” Johnson said. “We felt we spent the first half of 2021 figuring out what we have on our hands. Now that we’re very comfortable with what we have, we want to do much more.”
The certification services the library is prepared to offer residents for free have the potential to help workers change careers or find a job if they lost one because of the pandemic and generally help certain local businesses recover with a trained workforce pool, Johnson said.
AMPLE OPPORTUNITY
The city has a committee that has been exploring economic recovery opportunities with the federal aid money. The library’s request came when only preliminary guidance was available from the federal government, said Devin Howland, the city’s economic vitality director. The government issued the final guidance Thursday, and now city officials can pore over it to narrow down what requests are viable, he said.
Even if hiring staff at the library doesn’t meet the requirements, there almost certainly are opportunities to explore in regard to programming and workforce development that the library is in a position to address, Howland said. There also are other grant opportunities, through means such as the U.S. Department of Labor and the state Economic Development Commission, that could help carry out the library’s mission, he said.
City officials plan to hold meetings next week and will discuss the possibilities, particularly with what role the library’s Center for Innovation could play in economic recovery, Howland said.
“We know what the center is capable of, so let’s look at how we can best use it to craft a proposal that helps the most people and activates this center toward covid-19 recovery,” he said.
City administrators plan to present the City Council a list of recommended ways to spend the American Rescue Plan money, although a time frame has not been determined yet, Howland said.
Times of societal uncertainty and change, such as the covid-19 pandemic, are precisely when communities need libraries the most, said Sarah Ostman, deputy director of the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office. Libraries, like so many other industries, faced staff reductions, furloughs and budget cuts, she said.
“Even with all the obstacles that covid presented, the pandemic inspired public libraries to innovate,” Ostman said. “Among the things we saw during the pandemic were efforts to fight misinformation, virtual local history tours and virtual programs of all kinds, Herculean efforts to reach people without internet access through book delivery services and telephone, and so much more.”
Ostman agreed with the Washington Post’s assertion that libraries are experiencing a golden age. Libraries provide communities access to resources well beyond books, she said.
“They are perhaps the only place in our society that requires nothing of their users,” Ostman said. “You don’t need to buy anything or believe in anything to access everything that public libraries have to offer, and you get the same access no matter who you are or how much money you have.”
The aid would provide enough money over time while the library boosts revenue from its event center and deli, Johnson said. From there, the library could sustain the positions and costs on its own, he said.