Library
Read On! This is your library
When you come in next time, you’ll probably notice that the staff is sporting fancy new name badges. Our previous name badges were fine, but these feature our logo and our slogan, “This is your library.” (Some of the staff even have the slogan in different languages!)
That phrase was well-rooted when I first started and I appreciated the sentiment very much. I loved that we use it as our greeting when we answer the library’s phone and I felt like it was a good, succinct way to tell our community where our focus lies.
After working here for a while, getting to know our community, and getting to know a lot of the people who make up our community, our slogan has a deeper meaning for me than it did almost four years ago. Now, I understand a little better why the staff and administration before me worked hard to make that slogan part of the culture of our library.
On the surface, of course this is your library. You shop in Pryor so you pay sales tax, which funds our City’s General Fund and that’s where the library gets its budget. Without you, there literally would be no library. But when we say “This is your library,” we mean more than “hey, thanks for shopping local!” We mean, “You are welcome here. You have a place here. We’d love to help you find what you need.”
Do you need help and don’t know where to start? This is your library. Do you need to find quality research for your paper or project? This is your library. Have you run out of things to read? This is your library. Do you want to learn how to read better? Do you want to learn how to speak English or another language? This is your library. Do you need a place to be without having to buy something? This is your library.
Our slogan is more than ritual language to us. This is your library and we’re so happy you’re here.
Read On! Another Full-time Position
This year’s budget process was a little different than in years past. This year, I got to consult our Strategic Plan, which shaped our budget requests. I considered seven specific activities of our Strategic Plan while preparing our budget.
Three of these activities ensure we have adequate funding for our physical and online collections, one ensures we have enough to refresh our play area in the Youth Services Department, and two ensure our staff can attend continuing education training. The seventh activity: “Research and implement the steps necessary to expand our hours to 55 hours per week…” had me looking at our staffing in each area of the library.
Ideally, we will be open 55 hours (instead of our current 43 hours) each week by the end of June in 2022. To do this, we need to make sure we have enough staff to cover all of our desks while we’re open. There are several steps necessary to make this transition happen, but the big one we took this fiscal year was to ask for another full-time position.
Having a sixth full-time position will do a lot for our library. It will ensure consistent and excellent service in our Computer Lab, which will free up staff in other parts of the library to concentrate on the tasks of their particular desks. It will also add an additional voice and increased talent to the services we currently offer. These bonuses will make the library stronger and better able to serve our community.
Ultimately, our goal with all of our services, including the staff we employ, is to make your Pryor Library the best library we can. Our community deserves the library services and assistance they need, not just what the staff has time for. With increased hours and increased staffing to go with it, I think we’ll be headed in the right direction to make that happen.
Library closed for Labor Day
Our physical building will be closed on September 2nd, 2019 for Labor Day, but we’re open 24/7 online! Check your account, place holds, download ebooks and audiobooks, learn a language, research your family history – all from where ever you are, day or night.
Read On! Greed in Publishing
Patrons who use our ebook library are about to be frustrated with our service. I sincerely apologize. All 8,000 public library systems offering ebooks are trying to find a solution.
Ebooks are sold differently than their physical counterparts. When we buy a physical book, the library owns it. We can add it to our collection, loan it as many times as we want, trade it, give it away, or sell it. That book is 100% ours.
When libraries buy digital books, we don’t own anything. We are simply buying a license to access the book in a digital format. That license is only good for one patron at a time. The publishers dictate how we can use it, how many times we can let our patrons check it out, how many copies we can purchase, and how long those copies will be available. Plus, libraries pay between $40 – $80 per license, depending on the publisher.
All five of the big publishers limit access to library ebooks in some way. Most licenses expire in two years or after 26 – 52 checkouts, whichever comes first. Macmillan is enacting a new embargo on their ebooks: A library, no matter how many people they serve, can only purchase one copy of any newly published ebook for the first 8 weeks after publication. This will mean even longer holds lists for some popular titles. And our licenses may expire before everyone gets to check the book out.
Publishers justify all of this by saying libraries eat into the publishers’ profits. Of course, an impartial study by the Panorama Project clearly demonstrates that wide availability of library ebooks increases sales and interest in authors.
I’m not sure how the dust will settle on all of this, but please forgive the longer waits for ebooks. We’re trying to work with publishers, but it will take some time. It may even get worse before it gets better.