December 04, 2006

Library Named "Business of the Year"

Energy. Excitement! So much of both at the recent Homer Township Chamber of Commerce Annual Installation Dinner where your Homer Library received the Chamber's Business of the Year award. It was a sweet and proud moment. There are many event pictures at the Chamber's photo site here or on the Library's photo site.

This has been a year of new partnerships for the Library. Most notably a unique collaboration was initiated with the business community through an outreach grant. We provided free programs, expanded our great collection of business materials, brought in national authors as specialty speakers, offered business computer classes, and made direct library contact with our local businesses. It was a year of firsts for us, as we initiated this "personal touch" campaign and began a new dialogue with a great group of customers in our many businesses.

Grant Funding - How it helps!
Grant funding allows us to go that extra mile for our customers, to try new and innovative programs, and to provide more in collections and specialty programming. Grants supplement our tax-capped budget. With grant support we have initiated programs that funded family art projects, supported children's literacy with reading to therapy dogs, developed a new collection of Polish and Spanish materials, purchased a bookmobile, and much more. I have written 30 grants that the library has been awarded over the past six years and other staff grant writing successes add to that total. It's an exciting time to be a librarian. Great community services that we envision do come to life!

Tell Us What You Want...
We seek your input and are listening to you - our customer. As the Library continues to evolve and change we strive to be user-centered and keep the library essential and meaningful to you. This means encouraging your participation and dialogue, reaching out to new users in new ways, and creating community. We need your communication to ensure the library remains vital and convenient. As our management team undertakes long range planning we continue to ask: What do you want to see here? How can we make the library a destination point for you? How can we assist you better in the area of remote access? What programs, collections, services, etc. would you and your family benefit from? Help me keep the user at the heart of library services - community conversation is essential for this to happen.

What is your vision for the future of library services?
I'm listening, so let me know.