A real page-turner
A view of the future at Garland County Library
T he Garland County Library in Hot Springs is evolving, as all entities evolve. I have been the director at the Garland County Library since St. Patrick’s Day of 1987. Libraries at that time were much like they were when I was a kid in Little Rock in the 1960s. We had books, magazines, newspapers, and record albums, and that’s what we had when I got to Hot Springs. That was the industry standard.
Libraries were the Temples of High Culture then, and library directors may have been deluded into thinking they were the keepers of the keys to that High Culture. Nerdy teens, retirees, a few good students, and little kids were the base service groups. As long as your library had stuff for high school reports and the like, you could be guaranteed a continued but limited future.
There were a few videocassettes at the library in 1987. I remember one of them was on how to cook eggs. A video on how to cook eggs! Who’d think that such a thing would be needed, and that it would require a deposit to check out? That’s crazy.
Libraries go through peaks and valleys. We were determined to get out of a valley at that time. We had to adapt, and we had to move forward. We started buying more videocassettes and offering more than just programming for adults. We were poorly funded, but we had to prove to taxpayers
that the ship was righted and that things were improving.
We passed a slight tax increase in 1988, then a sunset sales tax, and built a new facility that opened in 1995. In August we’ll celebrate 20 years in our new home. We again asked for an increase in our taxes, and were given a decent budget to work with. So we added hours and expanded our offerings.
Up to that time we were using those big machines that went “kathunk, kathunk” when you check out an item. Cards were filed by hand. Circulation was filed by hand. The card catalog was maintained by hand.
But there is nothing that needs computerization like a library, and there is nothing more complicated than that computerization. Sure, banks have been computerized. But banks do not have to make sure that each dollar put in was paired by serial number with the depositor. Library automation demanded that, as we had to make sure that the 20 unique items you take out are matched to your name. So we got computerized, using clunky terminals that displayed green letters.
In the 1990s, there were strange rumblings about something called the Internet. Some libraries were using it, but many could not see its use at that time, as it was costly and service was hard to get.
A patron started whispering in my ear that we really needed the Internet. He conducted a fundraiser, and we got a small desktop unit. Oh, yeah, I had a word processor, and the bookkeeper had a computer with some bookkeeping on it, but that was about it.
We got one little Internet-linked computer set up, and folks could sign up to use it for 15 minutes.
Then we started buying books on CDs. Then we started getting movies on these things called DVDs. We added another computer for the public, then Bill Gates decided to get folks online. Much like Andrew Carnegie before him, he smiled on public libraries and gifted us with several computers, training, and better Internet access. We went from two dedicated Internet computers to six. The Internet really grew into its own, and the public demanded more.
At the same time, librarians began to realize that the future rested in part with the Internet, and all the good and the bad inherent with that offering. If we were to overcome the fate of buggy-whip factories, we needed to change from top to bottom, and that is what we are still doing.
We realized that we had to increase our relevancy through offerings and services. We had to give people what they wanted along with the things that libraries traditionally had. We had to have better hours for working families, and we had to go head-to-head to get their attention, as modern families have so many things they can do with their time. We had to make ourselves indispensable by offering food for the brain, for the soul, and for entertainment. We had to reach out to new folks. Libraries could always rely on the bookworms.
We also realized that we will not be able to reach some groups no matter what we do. We have to reach out to that middle ground.
Our numbers are good. In 2013 we had over 411,000 visitors checking out something like 740,000 items. But we felt compelled to reach out even more since the choices for the public are ever-growing. We now offer downloadable books that are never overdue. You can sit in your underwear at home, if that is what you want, and download as many books as policy allows from the library.
We realized that we would not be able to build branches because people want everything we have in our one and only library. Digitalization of offerings seemed to be the solution. Then we offered music downloads that patrons can keep forever through a service called Freegal (for Free and Legal). We started supplying movies through downloads. We increased programs in-house to include film series, concerts, reading groups, and whatever it would take to get folks into the building.
But we just were not getting to where we needed to be. A very prescient board member suggested we undertake a PR campaign to alert the citizens in Garland County to the fact that the Garland County Library was not “their father’s Oldsmobile,” so to speak. People were still thinking that we were the keepers of all things High Culture.
So it was determined that we ask folks what they wanted of us, what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and how we could improve on the wonderful base we have. We hired the public relations consultants at First Class Communication, and that is where we are now.
Those consultants conducted several focus groups. One was for current users. Another was for non-users. Finally, there was a focus group for employees. Each group had one meeting lasting the better part of a day. They were quizzed and prodded and poked. All of the answers were put together, and we came up with a plan. Here’s what we learned:
There is an overwhelmingly positive perception of this library. People feel a definite connection. But we are charged with finding ways to stay relevant to our current users while at the same time alerting non-users to the wonders of a modern library.
We have to keep up with emerging technologies. We have to separate the meaningful technological inroads from the passing fad technologies.
As with libraries everywhere, we found out that we are missing the boat with teens and young adults.
We have to utilize our space to its highest use.
We must investigate our place in this community and the viability of our becoming the aegis for a public auditorium catering to the spoken word, films, and music. Think Ron Robinson Theatre at Central Arkansas Library System. There is nothing like that in our fair city. Some folks peddle Hot Springs as the city of arts, but we have no public performance venue.
We have advertised and publicized for years, even though many said we should not advertise because we were “the library,” and what could be more American and apple pie than the library? That’s ridiculous, as we are in a fight to keep the attention of those who fund us.
We are trying to come up with a coherent plan for advertising and publicizing all that we do. We have to take better charge of social media. We may no longer need to advertise to those who use us, but to those who don’t know what we have. That means radio and TV ads. That means defining possible user groups and figuring out how to best get to them.
That meant cleaning up the place. The children’s department was the same color it was in 1995, a nice boring gray. It now has multi-colored walls, new furniture that appeals to kids, and things geared to making the library a fun place that kids would want to visit.
We painted the adult area to make it more inviting. We moved collections around to make high-demand items more visible. We initiated more outreach to schools and groups and courier service to outlying parts of the county where folks can pick up and return items. We added more to our e-offerings. We got fiber-optic Internet service and Wi-Fi. We are redoing our website with the hopes that it will be more easily used.
We are initiating a monthly e-newsletter to families and to our general audiences, more programs for teens, Bingo for Books for general audiences, free movies almost every
Sunday (we recently showed Gone
Girl), and book clubs for adults and teens. We tried to have a book club in a popular restaurant. We hosted Tales From the South.
We even have a Guilty Pleasures book club where we will look at some popular titles no one admits to reading. Our first offering: Valley of the Dolls.
Realizing that folks were no longer using our local history and genealogy room, we donated those collections to groups specializing in that study. We converted that room to a larger public meeting room.
Libraries are about connecting, whether that is through a good read, a good movie, a meeting place, or through the Internet. There is no better place suitable to fulfill that mission than the public libraries. We wish to remain vibrant, meaningful, and relevant.
We are poised to do some great things after all of these years. I have a great professional staff with some young minds in the wings. We have a great reputation. We have some funding, but we need to watch it. For some of our ideas to come to fruition, we need to get our message out, and then ask for funding in the coming years.
We will never rest on the work we have done. The past is more like a set of continuing stair steps that we want to keep climbing. If we can’t do all the big things, we can continue to do the things we do well.