The plan is a means by which the library can greatly enhance and expand the Collection Development by using the thousands of books that are donated yearly by our generous community. It will take years and constant vigilance and dedication to evaluate and select needed books for the shelves from donated materials to complete collections by popular authors and subject collections. The yearly total of books weeded out by attrition and loss magnifies the challenge.
The anonymous donors of the library were very farsighted in providing for the present and the foreseeable future needs of the facility. The rooms are spacious, circulation excellent and some 16,000 square feet is provided for future expansion. (Please refer to Library Schematic for more details.) To give you an idea of the size of the expansion room it is only 1,000 square feet less than the entire old library building. The entire library building is housed in 51,300 square feet.
Since the end of the library fiscal year on September 30, 2001 through the end of fiscal year 2004, the number of items in the library has grown from 42,041 to 70,551, the number of members from 21,847 to 24,144; and the number of patron visitations from 89,377 to 140,797. (Please refer to COLLECTIONS for more information on library ratings.)
The challenge to the community is to provide the necessary funds and/or materials to enable the library director to adequately fill the shelves with desirable subject matter in a wide range of categories and subjects to accommodate the accelerating usage. (Please refer to Library Statistics for more details on usage.)
The size of the library is conducive to creating subject collections. The collection items could primarily be extracted from donated books and kept current by future donations. Expansion of the collection can be made with very little capital expenditure and absorbed by the friends. Volunteers from the friends of the library can also be responsible for additional personnel requirements to collect, bind, and shelve the books.
This plan is not a quick fix. IT IS A CHALLENGE.
