Library

One of the things we love about the Pryor and Mayes County communities is the generosity we see every day. From churches distributing food to those who need it to community members helping sponsor foster families and volunteering to work community events, we’ve got a good thing going in our community. 

Library workers often have a difficult time asking for help.When we realized how deeply our budget was being cut this year, we reached out with our Amazon lists and our book list with Chris at the Book Exchange to ask our community for help. 

You all have been amazing and kind and generous and we can’t thank you enough! Ten books have been ordered from our list at the Book Exchange and we’ve gotten some really fantastic donations of books and movies. From our office supply and program supply lists, we’ve gotten paper towels, soap, coffee, and more! Thank you! 

All of these things help with both our immediate needs and our morale. I think it’s safe to say that all city employees are having a bit of a morale slump this fiscal year, so we doubly appreciate all kindnesses that come our way. 

Probably, the biggest help our community members can give to all of our City Departments is to continue to shop local and make sure your sales tax dollars are spent in Pryor and Mayes County. Our City’s General Fund budget, which funds the Library, Police Department, Fire Department, City Hall, and Parks & Cemetery Departments, is dependent on sales tax dollars. That’s our primary source of revenue, so every little bit helps! Plus, shopping local helps our neighbors who own and operate businesses in our community. 

We’re closed Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the Thanksgiving holiday, but we’d love to see you on Tuesday for coloring at 11:30 AM or Wednesday for Storytime at 11:30 and 1:30. 

I am pleased to tell you that I have reached my reading goal a smidge early this year! My goal was to read 30 books in 2024. As of October 17th, my goal is complete. Now any books I read are my over-achiever books!

Next year’s goal will probably be the same. We have a lot to accomplish next year at the library, so I need to make my extracurricular goals meetable. The biggest thing we’ll need to do in the first half of 2025 is put together a new Strategic Plan. 

Our strategic plan will give us some direction for the next three years and will rely on input from our community to create. Be on the lookout for surveys, meetings, etc. so you can let us know what you want from your library. 

We have met most of the goals we set in the strategic plan we’re wrapping up. Mostly, our goal has been to rebuild. We faced unprecedented changes with both the COVID-19 pandemic and our construction project, we decided that the years following would be focused on reestablishing ourselves as a community hub. 

Looking at our statistics since 2022, I think we can mark that goal as (mostly) accomplished. Of course, our next strategic plan will need to grapple with our current setbacks – namely the City’s budget struggles, our staffing needs, and our cut in operating hours. Those alone are enough to take us back a couple of steps in our rebuilding progress. 

Together, we will figure out what our community needs from the library, how we can stabilize our funding, and how we can enrich the lives of everyone we serve. We will need your input to set these goals. Afterall, we are Your Pryor Public Library. 

We’re two weeks into our new operating hours. It’s not ideal (and it feels like a failure, if I’m honest), but we’ll get through this together. After a 13% overall budget cut (more than 12% from staffing once the dust settled from the severance packages and 15% from operations), we hope this fiscal year will be the worst of it. 

We are actively looking for additional funding through grants. We are hopeful they come through, but they are not guaranteed and they take time for the application & approval process to complete before we’ll actually receive any funding. 

To help in the shorter term, we are also asking our community for some specific help. We have three active “wish lists” of things we’ll need but may not have the budget for. Two of the lists are supply lists on Amazon. One is for general office supplies (paper, cleaning supplies, kitchen supplies, etc.) and the other is for specific supplies we’ll need for upcoming programs and activities. 

The third list is housed at the Book Exchange and consists of books the library would like to buy, but probably can’t afford this year. (Please don’t buy these books on Amazon.) All you have to do is go to the Book Exchange or call (918-825-6015) and let Chris know you’d like to buy one of the books on our list. He’ll get it ordered and over to us. 

We also always take donations of books and movies in good condition. If we don’t add them to the collection, we’ll add them to our sale shelf. Either way, your unwanted items will find a new home and help the library. 

Join us this week for our Quiet-ish book club on Mon at 4 PM, coloring on Tues at 11:30 AM, Storytime on Wed. at 11:30 AND 1:30, and yarning on Thur. at 11:30. 

As always, thank you for valuing your library. 

Celebrate Summer Reading with us by entering the library card design contest! Winning designs will be printed on a batch of library cards. Anyone living, working, or attending school in Mayes County is eligible to enter. One entry per person. One winner will be selected from each age category: children (5-11), teens (12-17), and adults (18+). Physical and digital submissions are accepted. Digital entries must be in JPG or PNG format and may not exceed 1 MB in size. Artwork must be original and not published elsewhere. Submitted artwork will become property of Pryor Public Library and will be reviewed by members of the community. Complete rules and entry packet are available below!