COLUMNS

Cumberland County library looks to get even better

Library officials want people to fill out surveys to help with its 'cradle-to-grave' mission

Myron B. Pitts
mpitts@fayobserver.com
Kevin Johnson of Fayetteville does some research on his mobile phone on the subject of e-commerce at the Headquarters Library on Friday afternoon. The Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center has released a survey, available online and at local branches, to gather public opinion as it prepares a five-year strategic plan. [Myron B. Pitts/The Fayetteville Observer]

I have been a fan of the library, and the whole concept of libraries, ever since I was a kid and reading in the children’s room in the old building on Hay Street, which is now the Arts Council building.

(Folks older than me remember when that same building was the post office.)

I love libraries and cannot figure out why everybody does not.

You can walk in and walk out with something of value, a book full of ideas, and all you have to do is return it. For me, as a kid, it seemed all this was free.

I would learn later that it’s a service we adult taxpayers have already funded.

But that’s cool. I’ve seen tax dollars frittered away on things not nearly as useful, and you have, too.

The Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center is one of the best library systems in the country. This is not an exaggeration — they have a medal to show for it: A library system’s highest honor, the 2012 National Medal from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Still, Library Director Jody Risacher and her team out there on Maiden Lane are always looking to improve.

You don’t stay good by staying still.

They need your help, too.

They are asking folks to fill out surveys online or at any of the library branches through the month of October. They are enticing people with a drawing for a $100 Visa gift card.

They are also mailing out 1,000 random surveys. If you get one, please respond. The questions are basic and, along with the other surveys, they will help the library come up with a 5-year strategic plan.

Anthony Chow, an associate professor at UNC-Greensboro, is the man who will be crunching the numbers and working with library officials and the community over a period of 10 months. The library received a federal grant of $21,080, administered through the State Library of North Carolina.

Chow says: “The end goal is to best serve the needs of the community as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

We talked last week in the library board’s meeting room at the Headquarters branch on Maiden Lane — plenty of room to stretch out at a long table in a room that could sit around 20 folks comfortably.

Within seconds of our discussion, I immediately marked out Chow as a fellow who is serious about libraries — and about improving an already great but under-appreciated resource. He told me has gone through this process with 20 other libraries across the state.

“Libraries are being used more not less,” he declared, saying that libraries’ digital offerings have increased usage even if it means some customers don’t physically walk into a library.

But folks are walking in, too, thanks to libraries’ push toward more programming, he said.

I told him about the story time for young kids we would take Sam and Helen Ann to, where they heard from the wonderful Ms. Ines and other readers at the Headquarters Library. I thought about events like Librari-Con, which in late August brought more than 1,000 people through the doors, dressed as everything from Darth Vader to Deadpool.

In September, Chow met with members of a steering committee at Headquarters. I was supposed to be part of that meeting but it’s a long story. Actually it’s a short story, I forgot the meeting.

Plenty of people did show up and gave Chow valuable input. He says with a smile it’s the first library steering committee he was a part of that included two generals.

The folks there brought up some things you might expect. How soldiers and military-connected folks use library resources to transition into civilian jobs. How Cumberland is one of the state’s economically “distressed” counties. How we want literacy to be a focus for our children.

And yes, the issue of security with the homeless population came up.

“How a community and a public library addresses that is always very complex,” Chow said. “Of course the big challenge is that we always want to be there for the indigent and the homeless."

But if a proper balance is not struck, it "could serve as a barrier for other people. In particular, one of the primary stakeholders, young families with young children. Those two groups oftentimes don’t mix very well."

But he said libraries in big, urban areas provide good models for addressing the issue through what he called behavioral policies. Reducing loitering is a big one.

Chow is following up with more interviews with people around here. When the survey numbers come in, that’s when the data analysis gets going, and another steering committee meeting is scheduled for January.

Chow says a challenge is making sure library resources get to people who could benefit the most from them. People often don't know what's available or have issues with access for a variety of reasons.

Many regular library users, on the other hand, were raised in libraries and know their benefits, he said.

When he described this group, it sounded like my life.

“If you really chart your relationship with libraries … most likely your parents brought you there when you were a kid," he said. "Most likely you of course visited school libraries. When you went to college, absolutely, you visited your academic library. And when you have kids, you’re coming back to the public library. There might be a short period of time in your adult middle-aged life you may not need libraries.

“But then once you become a senior … seniors use libraries really heavily. You hear everything from 'I come every day to check out books,' 'I come out to be with my friends' … it’s a gathering place. That needs to be espoused more. Libraries are there from cradle to grave. They are there the whole time.”

Forever and ever, amen.

Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.
https://www.fayobserver.com/story/opinion/columns/2019/10/05/pitts-cumberland-county-library-looks-to-get-even-better/2605004007/
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