As the Lansing Community Library comes to the end of summer and events are wrapping up, we will need to make some unexpected adjustments. The library recently had a long-time volunteer retire who assisted with shelving, keeping the collections straight, and helped with other projects. She volunteered about 30 hours a week at the library. This retirement moves up my need to evaluate the library’s programming. This evaluation is an important piece of keeping the library on track with its mission and goals and has been on my list of things to do. With the retirement of our volunteer, this evaluation now takes priority.
Over the last few years, we have added programs to build on past successes. In looking at all the programs offered at the library, I saw we have regular offerings for adults and pre-kindergarten patrons which focus on literacy and creativity. While we had an abundance of pre-kindergarten programming, what stood out was a lack of consistent programming for our school-aged patrons. With that information, I’ve decided to restructure our programming to include these age groups. We will begin offering various programs on different days, at different times, while covering different topics to encourage school-age participation.
In order to accomplish this, beginning September 1, 2019, we will only be offering Storytime on Friday mornings and continue our monthly Saturday Storytime and Toddler Time programs. We will be adding a monthly evening Storytime for families who are unable to attend during the day. We will also add “pop-up” programs beginning in late third quarter 2019 for a variety of ages and interests.
We look forward to continuing serving you and providing a wide variety of learning experiences for patrons of all ages in Lansing. Please share ideas for potential “pop-up” programs with me. I hope this realignment helps to encourage our families to visit the Lansing Community Library more often.
~Terri Wojtalewicz, twojo@lansingks.org