Winnetka Public Library
768 Oak Street
Winnetka, IL 60093 (map)
(847) 446-7220

Northfield Branch
1785 Orchard Lane
Northfield, IL 60093 (map)
(847) 446-5990

Winnetka Town Meeting
Winnetka-Northfield Public Library District
May 31, 2007

Carole Smith, Winnetka-Northfield Library District Board President

I thank the Caucus for providing this annual forum to share with you an overview of the services and goals of the Winnetka-Northfield Public Library District.

The Winnetka Library was established in 1884. Fifty years ago we built our present library building on Oak Street. Nearly 25 years later, Northfield joined the Library District. We also serve the Village of Kenilworth through a contractual agreement.

Our purpose is to provide public access to materials and services to meet the informational, cultural, and educational needs of every resident in the District. We provide resources that may not be readily available to a patron or, even if available, we provide them far more economically. We may not look as big as some other facilities, but through our interlibrary loan system and our reciprocal borrowing policy, you can quickly obtain materials housed in other north suburban public libraries. Through various affiliations, we can even access documents and information from locations far beyond the Chicago area.

And no matter where you are, you can delve into our many databases any time of the day or night—at no cost to you—by logging in at our Internet Website with your library card number and clicking on your choice of offerings. In fact, you can search all of our databases at once with one entry of your search’s key words. In addition to gaining free access to Morningstar, the Wall Street Journal archives, the New York Times archives, genealogical materials, and the Literature Resource Center—along with dozens more databases—a library patron can, without leaving home, examine the system’s collections—or just put a hold on any item or renew a borrowed book.

Caucus’s 2006-2007 Library Platform

The Winnetka Caucus performs a valuable service for the Library Board of Trustees. They recruit Library Trustee candidates, and in many years they prepare a community survey that yields useful information on our constituency’s views. They distill the community’s response to the questionnaire in the form of a Library Platform that is voted on at the Town Meeting in January.
This past year, the Library Caucus used an open-ended “comments” section to elicit community views. Twenty-eight percent of those who turned in a survey offered comments on the library. By far the greatest number of comments praised our library’s services, collection, and staff.

Electronic formats

When it came to specific suggestions, however, the greatest level of community interest was in adding to the library’s collections of DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, and downloadable items. Via the survey, Winnetkans are lobbying to have access to more than the nearly 2,000 DVDs, 3,000 audiobooks on CD and cassette, and 2,000 downloadable audio books from NetLibrary that are now available, as well as 2,700 ebooks that are accessible any time of the day or night to anyone with a District library card and access to a Windows PC or to certain MP3 players.  Either Winnetkans are demanding more than nearly 10,000 electronic media, or the survey respondents weren’t aware of what resources are already at their disposal. You can easily access a list of all the materials available on an electronic format at the library’s Website.

In fact, electronic delivery means that every single resident of the District can be using one of our reference ebooks at the very same time at home—such as the Animal Life Encyclopedia, for example—which is unlike traditional reference books that have to be used one person at a time in the Library.  Also in the 24-hour resource list, take a look under Homework Reference Collection or History and Biography Reference Collection to get an idea of the kinds of titles you—or your student—can take advantage of from home or elsewhere.

Children’s

In addition to wanting more electronic holdings, patrons would like to see more children’s programs and more DVDs, CDs, and educational software for children.  Ideally, they would like to see the children’s area enlarged and made more attractive.

Marketing

Finally, there is the perennial undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the library’s efforts to publicize its programs and holdings. We have responded to this concern by improving the look and navigability of the library’s Website—which we’ll continue to address. By the way, the use of the libraries’ Website was up 47% this past April over the year before, so the trend is definitely toward more library patrons becoming aware of what the library offers. Our quarterly print newsletter, The Source, has been streamlined and made more attractive and readable. The staff has been trained in a one-on-one “buzz marketing” technique. We shall continue to look for new ways to get the word out about the library’s many materials and programs.

Atmosphere

As many of you know, we suffered a weather-related catastrophe last October when a microburst caved in the downstairs door leading to the staff offices. The entire lower level was flooded, including the genealogy area. We were very fortunate to lose only a very small number of irreplaceable books. The other books destroyed by water have been replaced. The lower level has been completely rehabilitated with fresh paint on the walls, new carpeting on the floors, and reinstalled electric works in the moveable shelving.

Now that we are fully recovered from the flood, we can return to our plan to acquire better furniture for the Lloyd Room and to use color to brighten up the Library. A particular project will be new lighting in the Lobby/Circulation Area.

Speaking of circulation, our circulation of materials continues to climb steadily in both the main library and the branch. For example, in April, the most recent month for which we have statistics, the main library’s circulation rose 6.2% over April of 2006, and the branch’s circulation rose 10.7% over that same period. Database access from outside the library also increased significantly, reaching a new high of 1025 times accessed in April 2007.

Possible move

Finally, I should mention what a number of you may already know about. The Post Office’s lease will be up in 2009, and for many months our village leaders have been pondering how best to use that village-owned block to benefit the community.  There has been interest expressed in building a larger, more modern, and greener library facing the Village Hall at the west end of Moffat Mall.  This would be compatible with the 1921 Bennett plan, which called for a civic building in that spot. We are at the very beginning stages of gauging whether there is even genuine citizen support for such a project—not only a keen interest in the idea but a willingness to fund the building and ongoing operations of a larger library. You’ll undoubtedly be seeing more about community meetings and surveys in the months ahead.

In conclusion, I would like to laud the Library’s high-caliber personnel. Our librarians are expert consultants who can guide you to the best material in print, audio, video, and on-screen formats. They can help you identify appropriate and credible resources in the uncharted ocean of data to be found on the Internet. They will even train you in the use of computer equipment, databases, and the Internet.

Finally, I would like to thank you, the involved, responsive community that clearly places a high value on its Library. Thank you very much for your interest and support.