Your Public Library - One of the Best Bargains in Town

What comes to mind when you think of your public library? A place filled with shelves of books, that latest "best seller", an organized catalog to find materials, the person who helped you find a bit of information that was important to you at the time. Perhaps a place you went as a child to hear stories, meet friends, and check out books.

The library today continues to offer these basic services and much more. As times have changed, libraries have changed, also. People used to come and check out books; it was a big change to see paperbacks instead of hardback books. Now, in addition to printed books, the library offers audiocassettes, videocassettes, compact disks (CD's), digital video disks (DVD's), puppets, newspapers and magazines for access by the public.

Libraries offer programming as another way of providing information to the public. By forming partnerships with many agencies in the community (Iowa State Extension Service, Health Partners of Trinity Regional Hospital, and Iowa Central Community College are just three examples), there are many more opportunities to get accurate and helpful information to the public.

Children may be exposed to their first "social occasion" through the Story Times at the library. Starting children young (our library's programs start for children 18 months and older) to hear the sounds of spoken words by having stories read helps them in developing vocabulary as they grow. Stimulating their imagination and creative senses are also important, and the activities center with the Vincent House puppet theater and the bead table, even the library's parakeet, Pickles, makes a difference.

Technology has made a tremendous difference in libraries. Instead of manually checking out materials, computers are used to keep track of the transactions for patrons. The catalog for materials is now on computer for access for those who come to the building and for those who choose to access it through the Internet. Patrons have the capability to research materials available in the library's collection and can place a reserve on an item or renew an item within the building or from their home. There are also links from the library's web page (www.fortdodge.lib.ia.us) to many helpful web sites listed A to Z.

A few years ago, we heard that libraries would go out of business because all one would need is a computer. Very quickly we have learned that libraries are needed more than ever. It is one thing to know how to use a computer for word processing or accounting and totally another to search and retrieve information. Librarians who have the skill to organize and methodically search for information that can quickly be retrieved are in great demand. Our library's reference contacts have grown from 8,424 in 1999-2000 to 25,368 in 2001-2002.

Just as libraries have brought access to information through printed materials, libraries now bring technology to those who cannot afford their own computer or access to the Internet. The library offers public workstations so that the public can come and have access to information via the Internet. Computer workstations are now checked out via the library's automated circulation system, just as books are. The computers do not leave the building; they are just "borrowed" for an hour per day. The computers were used more than 18,000 times in 2001-2002.

If you are a researching a topic, there are special electronic indexes as well as printed resources you can use in the Reference area of the library. Among them are indexes for health, law, authors, magazines and newspapers. Many of these indexes will retrieve full text articles that can be copied via the networked printer for 10 cents per page in black or white or e-mailed to your home computer.

What does the access to the materials, staff and electronic resources cost? If you owned a home assessed at $100,000 in value, it would cost the taxpayer, $32.85 per year to operate the library. What a bargain for the people of Fort Dodge!