By Staff
The end of September brought the close of another fiscal year at the library. Although our funding is not tied to the level of usage, the library tracks a wide variety of usage statistics throughout each fiscal year.
These statistics show that this was a very busy year and, the number of people taking advantage of the many services provided by the library continues to grow steadily.
The number of items checked-out at the library increased 9 percent over the previous year. A total of 184,757 books, videos, audio books and magazines were checked-out.
Adults checked-out 12 percent more and children's circulation increased by 4 percent. VHS and DVD circulation saw the most significant change, from 24,143 to 35,950, for a 49 percent increase.
The library offers 18 computers for the public to use. This year, computer usage increased nearly 5 percent from the previous fiscal year. People signed up 37,945 times to use our computers.
Patrons can look at their accounts online by visiting the library's website at . There they can see what they have checked out, renew and reserve items and update their account information, such as address or phone number. The usage of this service has grown steadily since it was first offered in 2003.
Patrons renewed 90 percent more items online. They accessed their accounts online 30% more often, or 3,176 times.
The library offers a wide variety of programs for all ages, including story times, computer classes, book discussions, special speakers and much more.
Overall, program attendance increased by 26 percent. Adult attendance increased an incredible 97 percent to 1,525. Children's programming continued to draw huge crowds with a total of 9,131 participants and a substantial increase of 21 percent.
One of the most important services we provide is helping patrons find the information they are looking for. When a child asks for help finding a book about rabbits, an adult needs to find an address of a business in California or a teen seeks help with a book report, we record these as reference questions. Staff answered 17,667 reference questions, an increase of 4 percent.
A record for each book which arrives at the library must be entered into the computer. Each book is stamped and labeled. This work is done by the technical services staff. During fiscal year 2005 they added 7,463 items to the collection, an increase of 28 percent. There were 5,830 items withdrawn from the collection, an increase of 73 percent.
Young adults (ages 11-16) were identified in our long range plan as a group we want to try to serve better.
Last year we offered six YA programs; this is triple the number we had offered the year before. Total participation jumped from eight to 132, and circulation of young-adult items increased 11 percent.
If you are not among the many area residents who are using the library's services on a regular basis, we invite you to visit the library soon. There is always something going on.