eva's Blog
CPL Wins National Award
We have great news to share with you! The Canton Public Library has been named the inaugural recipient of the 2013 LibraryAware Community Award, co-sponsored by industry magazine Library Journal and LibraryAware, part of EBSCO Publishing's NoveList Division.The award "emphasizes the library's engagement with the community," and is an acknowledgement of the tremendous accomplishments of the library staff. Since I became library director in 2008, we have focused on the community through our partnerships, volunteers, programs, and services. The strategic vision of our library board guides our work; the support--moral and financial--given to us by the Friends of the Library is essential to our success; and our partnerships with the Township, area schools, businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations help us Connect Your Community. My staff uses these connections to provide you with programs, collections, and services that improve Canton's quality of life.
Most importantly, we owe our successes to the patronage and support of our community. You are the key to what we do every day, to the tune of nearly 600,000 visits and 1.8 million items circulated annually.
I am proud of my staff for their hard work, and thrilled to see them recognized on a national level. We are planning a Community Celebration on May 10 (details to follow). Please mark your calendars and plan on joining me in congratulating our fine library staff on winning this award!
Best,
Eva M. Davis, Director
Reciprocal Borrowing 2012 - Board Presentation
Nancy's presentation, attached here as a .pdf, gave the Board good background on checkouts of our materials by patrons of other libraries, and I hope that you find it useful and interesting, also.
Best,
Eva M. Davis, Director
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Welcome to the new Library Board of Trustees
On November 6, the people of Canton elected six residents to the Library Board of Trustees. Nancy Eggenberger, Sommer Foster, Michelle Farell, and Thomas Hartnett joined incumbents Jim Fausone and Kim Schulz on the board, all of whom were sworn in on November 15 by Canton Township Clerk Terry Bennett.The Library Board is responsible for the governance and financial oversight of the library. They hire, evaluate, and fire the Library Director, and ensure that the library meets the needs of Canton Township residents. The library has successfully weathered the economic downturn so far, largely because of the successful direction and guidance of these dedicated trustees.
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2011 Annual Report
Canton Public Library Connects Your Community.
For CPL, 2011 was all about people. A great library is a reflection of a great community, and it all boils down to people: hardworking staff, dedicated volunteers, loyal supporters, and a community that values and uses their library. Use of the library in 2011 was heavy, with a whopping 565,046 people coming through our doors. We remain the busiest single-location public library in the state of Michigan, with employees who demonstrate time and time again their commitment to serving our residents with excellence.
These 565,046 visitors checked out materials, gathered with colleagues, made new friends, used our computers, and were assisted by our highly-trained, expert staff. Our 2011 Annual Report provides highlights of our fantastic year with an emphasis on how people used the library, and how our staff made that possible through creative management of our resources and responding to the feedback we got from you, the users. We hope you enjoy this report on your library and we look forward to continuing to meet the needs of our community.
Sincerely,
Eva Davis, Director
2012 Budget Hearing
Our Library Board of Trustees will hold the required Public Hearing on Thursday, September 15, at 7:30pm at the library to take public comment on and approve the library's 2012 budget (attached, with a comparison to our approved 2011 budget), levying a millage rate of 1.5437 mills to generate total revenue of $4.9 million. This is a reduction of about $40,000 compared to our 2011 budget, and a total reduction of about $1.9 million compared to our 2008 budget — 2008 was our "high-water" mark as far as revenues; the recession led to declining property values, which leads to reduced property tax collections and a smaller budget for library services.
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Connect Your Summer Feedback
Our new Connect Your Summer program reinvented the Canton Public Library's traditional summer reading program. Connect Your Summer simplified and streamlined participation by creating one program for all ages that could be completed singly or as a group, team, or family. While we continue to offer a paper-based format, Connect Your Summer was primarily designed to be completed online—so you could complete your log at anytime, from anywhere—and allowed library staff to provide more meaningful interactions with you through our increased programming and events. Badges could be earned by reading as well as other means. Our overarching mission is "Connecting Your Community," and Connect Your Summer focused on community partners, community events, and shared experiences, with the library serving as the hub.
Because Connect Your Summer is a new approach to summer library programming, we are asking you to provide feedback to help us learn from and improve it:
- If you participated in Connect Your Summer, Share your feedback
- If you did not participate, Share your feedback
Sincerely,
Eva Davis, Director
Troy Public Library to Remain Open
Congratulations to our colleagues at the Troy Public Library! After several years of cuts and threatened closures by city council, previous failed millage votes, and a dire economic situation, Troy voters passed a dedicated library millage of .7 mills annually for five years on August 2. This new dedicated millage means that TPL will not close, and will allow them to maintain library services to their community at state-mandated levels. Troy is a great community that deserves a great library. Everyone at Canton Public Library sends our best as the TPL board and staff work over the next several months to rebuild TPL. Congratulations!- Login to comment
Update on Services to Garden City Public Library Cardholders
Congratulations to Garden City residents, and to all Garden City Public Library cardholders, on the July 18 reopening of the Garden City Public Library.The Garden City Public Library has announced that they will be open for thirty hours, five days per week, from July 18 through at least the November millage election. Unfortunately, these hours will not meet the minimum requirements for state certification. As a result, the Canton Public Library will not resume reciprocity with Garden City Public Library at this time.
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Welcome to Connect Your Summer!
Welcome to Connect Your Summer 2011, our new Summer program that encourages you to connect to the Canton community through reading and activities.Connect Your Summer is truly a community-wide program. Like our logo, the library is the hub of Connect Your Summer, with spokes leading out to our partners: the Friends of the Library, Canton Leisure Services, the Canton Downtown Development Authority, the Canton Chamber of Commerce, the Cherry Hill Village Theater, the Michigan Philharmonic, and others.
Sign in to your individual, family, pair, or group account to start earning virtual badges for reading, attending community events, attending library programs, attending programs put on by one of our partners, visiting places in our community, using the library, or for activities you come up with on your own. As you complete activities, click 'Claim' next to the appropriate badge to get that badge. Publish your earned badges and write reviews of your activities to share your experiences with other Connect Your Summer participants.Connect Your Summer is designed to be completed online, at your own pace, when it is convenient for you. Want to mark your badge completed at 10:30 at night? No problem! Do you find it tough to keep track of reading logs for every member of your family? There are no more paper logs to keep track of (or lose!). Have you wished you could take a solitary activity and make it a group event? Now you can — create a new account to register for Connect Your Summer as a group, and because it's one program designed for all ages, you can earn your badges together.
I am proud of the work my staff has done to create this innovative new program that turns the traditional library Summer program on its head and allows for multiple ways to participate, at a level that you can tailor to meet your needs. Our overarching goal with Connect Your Summer is to encourage you to make connections within your community. I think that you, your family, and your friends will enjoy the variety of ways you can use Connect Your Summer to learn more about your neighbors and the entire Canton community.
Best,
Eva M. Davis, Director
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Services to Garden City Public Library Cardholders
To all Garden City residents and Garden City Public Library cardholders:In preparation for their anticipated closing due to lack of funding, the Garden City Public Library has announced that the last day they will lend materials is Thursday, May 26, 2011. GCPL will remain open to the public to use materials within the building until June 25, 2011.
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Update on Services to Romulus Public Library Cardholders
Congratulations to Romulus residents, and to all Romulus Public Library cardholders, on the Romulus City Council's recent decisions to establish a PA 164 independent city library and appoint a five-member library board.The newly-created library board's announcement that they will open the Romulus Public Library for eight hours, one day per week, through the first week of July, and their plan to fund the library at .12 mills after that for service three days per week, is a great start to getting the new independent library started.
Services to Romulus Public Library Cardholders
To all Romulus residents, and to all Romulus Public Library cardholders:In preparation for their anticipated closing on May 1, the Romulus Public Library has stopped checking out all materials. As a member of The Library Network cooperative, the Romulus Public Library had a reciprocal borrowing agreement in place that allowed you to use neighboring libraries.
While we here at the Canton Public Library are happy to reciprocate with other communities, that reciprocity is based on mutual sharing; we cannot bear the financial burden of serving Romulus residents when Romulus is eliminating funding for their library.
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Losing Libraries
Everyone here at CPL is sad and upset to see libraries in our state affected by the economy. In addition to the May 1, 2011 closure of the Troy Public Library, the Detroit Public Library will announce layoffs, and the Romulus Public Library may also be closed after a proposed millage failed earlier this week. Coupled with proposed funding cuts at the state level, libraries and library services in Michigan are in jeopardy. As I've discussed with you before, CPL is not immune from these cuts.That's what makes an article like this one from Scott Turow such a mood-lifter for the CPL family. Our featured author at our 2010 Everyone's Reading program, Mr. Turow spoke to a capacity crowd at the Village Theater last February, staying afterward to answer questions, autograph books, and talk to fans. Despite the bleak outlook for the next several years, we here at CPL will continue to strive for excellence in programs, collections, and services, meeting the needs of our community, as Mr. Turow outlines in his article, while maintaining a balanced budget and living within our means.
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How the Governor's Proposed Budget Affects CPL
Governor Snyder released his budget proposal last week, and as expected, the news is grim. The cuts to public, school, and university libraries across the state are significant, and will affect the services that CPL will be able to provide to our community — namely, interlibrary loan and research databases.
The Governor has proposed cutting state aid to libraries to $3 million. The statutorily-required funding is $15 million. The current funding level of $5 million automatically qualifies the state to receive a federal matching grant of $5 million, which pays for MeLCat (statewide interlibrary loan) and the Michigan eLibrary (MeL — statewide research databases). Cutting state aid results in a cut to, and possibly a loss of, the matching grant, which puts MeL and MeLCat in jeopardy.
MeL and MeLCat exemplify the resource-sharing, aggregation of services, eliminating duplication of effort, and economies of scale that the Governor has emphasized over and over. More than 300 libraries — public libraries, K-12 libraries, and university libraries — pool this funding to provide services to Michigan residents. The $5 million investment by the state nets a $5 million matching grant, and saves taxpayers nearly $72 million annually, when you consider the cost to each library if they had to purchase these same resources on their own.
2011 Approved Budget
At its September Budget Hearing, the Library Board of Trustees approved the library's 2011 budget (attached, with a comparison to our 2008 budget, which was our last budget before the recession hit), levying a millage rate of 1.5437 mills to generate total revenue of $4.9 million. This is a reduction of about $300,000 compared to our 2010 budget, and a reduction of about $1.6 million compared to our 2008 budget.
$4.9 million is the size our budget was in 2004, when we served 15,000 fewer people, checked out 600,000 fewer items, and had 40% more staff. It is ironic that these library cuts come at a time when our community needs us now more than ever to help you cope with the down economy. In 2011, further cuts have been made to nearly all line items, notably staffing, materials, supplies, and programming.
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