Library Seeks Community's Help in Plan to Extend Hours

Despite ongoing funding issues keeping the library closed on Fridays and Sundays, new Director Kate Hall anticipates the library could be open an additional seven hours, but is looking for community input as to when would be best.

The recently created a survey for the community to weigh various options, including an additional two hours Monday through Thursday, Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The survey is on the front of the library's website or can also be found by clicking here.

"The community has grown, and in order for those people to utilize the library we have to be open more often," Hall said.

The New Lenox library moved into its building on the Village Commons in 2001, and within one year had to cut operations on Fridays and Sundays because of a lack of funding.

About 90 percent of the library's $1.6 million budget comes from property taxes. The library collects about $2.4 million in taxes annually, but $900,000 of that is used to pay off bonds for the building. That will continue through 2018, at which point the amount of taxes the library levy's will drop even more.

A state tax cap limits the amount the library district, a taxing body, can levy from property taxes. The library district pushed for three referendums in the last decade to allow it to tax above the rate of the cap, but despite the library being just 3 percent of tax bills, each referendum was shot down by a wide margin. 

"It makes it really difficult to find additional revenue," former Director JoAnn Potenziani, who retired earlier this month, said in a previous article.

Hall, of Oak Park, doesn't plan to seek another referendum but has said that by showing how the library can support the community, the community will in turn support the library.

So, as Hall and the library's Board of Trustees works on its budget, the library has also focused efforts on "Geek the Library," a national marketing campaign sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the OCLC that seeks to make residents more aware of what kind of programs, collections and services the library offers, as well has the funding issues affecting the library.

Geek is used as a verb, to describe something a person is passionate about.

“Whatever it is you geek, the library has something to support you," Hall said. “People associate libraries with one thing: books. But we offer so much more.”

Plus, as Hall said, residents are already paying tax dollars to the library; if they can learn more about what's offered there that would interest them, more people might come and spend time. That, of course, could mean staying open a few more hours, something that Hall believes is possible by tweaking some small things in the library's budget.

The budget year starts in July, and Hall said extended hours could begin in the late summer or early fall.