Grant Allows Library To Explore

Long-Term Planning

By Nancy K. Crevier

What is our vision for the future of the community of Newtown, and what does the community need to achieve that vision? How does the C.H. Booth Library fit into that vision and how will our library respond to the future needs of a world in which technology has changed the way people access and accumulate information?

These are questions consultants Christine Bradley, Connecticut Library Consortium executive director, and Kevin McCarthy, director of Perrot Library in Old Greenwich, are wrestling to answer with the help of community leaders from Newtown.

Ms Bradley and Mr McCarthy were selected by the C.H. Booth Library Board of Directors to guide the process of long-range planning, based on their experience working with other Connecticut libraries that have adopted long-range plans.

Mr McCarthy has worked in libraries as an administrator for more than 25 years, dealing with human relations and building issues. Ms Bradley’s expertise is in the area of library services.

Through a $9,000 grant awarded the Booth Library by the Connecticut State Library, these consultants have been hired as a first step toward creating a long-range plan for the library. Key players from Newtown have met with the consultants twice this spring to ponder the possibilities of our town and its library based on current and potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

“The state wants library services to drive the libraries, not the other way around,” said Ms Bradley. The Public Library Association came up with this community-based public library planning process about five years ago, she said, as a method for libraries to identify what services local libraries can provide to best meet the needs of each of the 169 communities in Connecticut. Long-range planning is not unusual for Connecticut libraries, said Ms Bradley. “I would say all of the major libraries in the state have a plan. It is part of a professional library to have a plan. Certainly any library in the state that has had a building plan lately has had to put a long-range plan in place.”

The 14 residents who attended the initial meetings were randomly selected through input from the library Board of Directors. Using guidelines suggested by the consultants, members of the public schools, clergy, social services, environmental agencies, the library, the Board of Selectmen, and others were selected to represent wide aspects of the town, said Liz Arneth, a member of the Board of Directors for the library.

The decision to explore long-range planning for the library was not based upon complaints about the services offered presently by the library, Ms Arneth said. “It is a positive, healthy way of affirming what we do and what we need for the future. [The library] is viable and exciting, but where do we want to be in five years?” she explained. Looking down the road, she said, technology is changing how people view the world. E-books and DVDs are common today, for example, she said. “What do we need to do to keep up?” asked Ms Arneth.

The library patronage is constantly increasing, she noted. “The programs are a big draw. The library provides service to lots of organizations in town.” How the library can view its physical space differently to continue to accommodate town needs is one of the aspects that the consultants will address.

The first meeting, on April 25, focused on the community vision and needs. Participants were asked to look down the road to the best Newtown imaginable. Reflecting upon the common values of a diverse population, the group envisioned a successful Newtown of the year 2016 and all that that could encompass, as well as what it would take to make that vision reality.

Identifying the opportunities that could move the town forward in a positive manner and those threats that could block progress, participants at the meeting analyzed how best to move from a current situation to a situation visualized for the future.

“That meeting was very exciting, I thought,” said Ms Arneth. “People from all different walks of Newtown were analyzing Newtown in a very different way than is normally heard. There was a great exchange of ideas,” she said.

The May 2 meeting expanded upon those visionary ideas and how they affect the library and the services it provides now and could supply in the future. The participants at that meeting were asked to rate the importance of library services, as they apply to the future. How important to the future will be the service of basic literacy? Will the library continue to be a source of consumer and general information for the majority of its users? How important a role will the library play in cultural awareness and local history?

“[A long-range plan] tells a library, ‘This is what the library should put money, time, and effort into.’ There are issues the library needs to be aware of,” said Mr McCarthy. “The strong thing that came out of this second meeting,” he said, “is that there is a need for intergenerational activities.” Intergenerational activities can consist of parent-child together programs and family events, including cultural programs, and a focus on events to draw teenagers and their families to the library. “A poetry slam would be an example of the type of program that is currently popular with teens,” said Mr McCarthy.

The other point brought out at the second meeting was that the library needs to be a place where people can meet and interact with each other through discussions and gatherings. “Books are always number one in Newtown, though,” stressed Mr McCarthy. Current titles and topics that satisfy residents’ curiosity about information, society and culture must remain a strong force for the C.H. Booth Library of the future.

Other library services that the committee identified to the consultants as vital to Newtown were those of business and career information, cultural awareness, addressing self-directed personal growth, local history and genealogy, and information technology. “The library as a place to find help with technology will be very important,” said Ms Bradley. “It could be a place to see the newer technologies, things like podcasting and blogs, or technology people won’t necessarily have at home.”

Ms Bradley and Mr McCarthy will use the results of the two brainstorming sessions to evaluate how Booth Library can remain a useful and usable source of information and to advise how best the library can move toward an ideal future. They will meet May 19 with library staff to facilitate discussion on utilizing the library’s current resources. Goals and the methods in which those goals can be achieved will be determined, as well as designating a mission for the library. By the end of the summer, Ms Bradley and Mr McCarthy hope to present to the committee and library Board of Directors a “road map” based on the consensus from these meetings. From there, it will be up to the library to put the plan into action.

How the library may need to redefine itself in order to remain a force in the community of the future is yet to be seen. “We’re a great library now,” said Ms Arneth, “but we can always be better.”