Libraries: A new way forward

Planning for the future is difficult without a strong understanding of what exists and what will be needed — that’s as true for families as it is for government services. Take, for example, perhaps the most-beloved service of all, libraries.

The last communitywide study of the state of libraries in Santa Fe took place in 1998. The focus paid off because city leaders realized that more resources were needed on the south side. Recently, the Southside Branch Library celebrated a 10th anniversary.

Now, it’s time once more for the Santa Fe Public Library System to set a course for the future, The City Council has approved a resolution for a planning and feasibility study, funded with both public and private money. The goal of the study is to show how the city can improve its three library branches and improve services.

This is an exciting venture, timed as the very nature and concept of libraries are changing. Yes, libraries remain a depository of community wisdom, a place to check out books (real or virtual), read newspapers and explore a world of ideas and information. They are places to bring babies for story time, have community meetings or host reading events for children and teens. After school, tutoring takes place in libraries. Job seekers use computers. Writers sit at tables in research rooms to work in solitude. So much, it seems, happens at the city’s libraries.

But what else is needed? To find out, a consultant who is a library expert will be selected (with input from community members and staff ) to begin looking at the library systems, buildings, programs, resources, services and staff. Everything will be under the microscope. Town hall meetings and focus groups will be part of the process, so that whatever plan is completed keeps the community in mind.

What Library Director Patricia Hodapp already knows is that library services are popular and growing. Last fiscal year, the three branches drew some 710,000 visits, an increase of about 10,000 over the previous year.

Eventually, a master plan will emerge. We already can see the need for more space downtown and in the middle of the city. More materials and the staff to handle those resources eventually will be required. That, of course, will cost money. The study also will try and identify funding sources; currently, most of the library system’s $3.5 million-plus annual budget comes from gross receipts taxes. Other revenue sources include general obligation bonds, the nonprofit Friends of the Santa Fe Library and Santa Fe County. It does little good to identify needs if there is no money to pay for them.

We hope, too, that citizens involved in studying what Santa Fe needs from its libraries will do some examination of what is happening in other cities. Libraries, with the advent of online books and other resources, are no longer the place where people come simply to find their favorite novel or do research for a paper. Around the world, libraries are evolving.

The TU Delft Library, in the Netherlands, offers video games, listening stations, toys for kids, comic books, an art collection and even a piano. Its website describes it as a place for “study, research and the exchange of knowledge.”

In Finland, the Turku City Library isn’t organized by books or DVDs or magazines; the collections are put together according to subject. All related materials are presented in one place, with specialists in the subject assigned to the area.

In Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Public Library uses technology for text message delivery of library notices and to provide access to 85 colleges and universities, increasing available resources.

The world is changing, and so are libraries. Santa Fe is smart to start planning now.