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Matthew Windsor INFO520 10/06/2011

Library Field Visit

The Faulkner County Library is located in Conway, Arkansas, the county seat and largest metropolitan area within the region. I met with the regional director, Ruth Voss, who has overseen the growth and expansion of the counties holdings since 1970. She gave me a brief tour of the library and explained the services they provided.

When you walk up to the Faulkner County Library you can clearly see the architectural theme of half circle arches from the front entrance. This theme is echoed throughout the entire open structure, from the entrance to the large arched atrium at the rear of the structure. Ruth explained that the arches are meant to evoke the feeling of an opened book. The only enclosed spaces in the library are the children’s rooms and the public meeting spaces in an adjacent wing.

The library serves as a community center, with monthly gatherings of almost every interest. Some of the various groups that use the library space cater to a wide span of subjects such as poetry, knitting, politics, software and gaming, Community Theater, creative writing, dancing, book clubs, ethnic clubs, local history and preservation, women’s empowerment, yoga, fitness, addiction support groups and Mothers Against

Drunk Driving (MADD). These were just a few of the groups that Ruth listed off the top of her head. She mentioned that over two hundred groups use the library on a given month. 2

The library works on a tight budget, with only nine full time staff and nine part time staff. The organization of the library starts with the Faulkner Quorum Court as guardians of overall county services. The court appoints five members of the local community to serve on a five year term as board members. These members approve all budgetary and policies measures and relay instructions to the director. The director acts as a direct liaison between the patrons and the library board. The director relays all funding and policy requests to the board for review. The board votes on policy matters and issues meeting minutes to the director. The director then interprets the policy into a yearly planning report. The director also delegates the daily tasks to the nine full time employees who then supervise the nine part time employees. These eighteen staff members serve a community of 113,237. These eighteen employees handled 370,651 items according to last year’s circulation numbers. That is over twenty thousand items per employee on average. Ruth was very proud of the library’s efficiency. She noted that many libraries have ten or twenty times the staff for the same circulation numbers.

Ruth provided a mission statement. The goals and philosophy of the library were succinctly stated in the four section document. The first goal was to serve the

“informational and recreational needs” of the community in the interest of public service.

The statement expressed that the mission should not be compromised by censure, and expressly stated that all citizens should be equally served. The third goal was to supply all of the items requested by the community, using inter library loan when required. The fourth and closing goal was to maintain the standards issued by the American Library

Association and to respect each patron’s rights and freedoms.

The library uses the Dewey system of library classification for the call numbers and arrangement. Due to a system change in previous years, the subject headings are a 3 mixture of Library of Congress and Sears. The library often hires paraprofessionals for librarian positions and the quality and consistency of the cataloging and indexing vary throughout the collection due to the knowledge level of the employees handling the intake of media.

The library offers an anonymous suggestion list and email to help gauge community interests. One staff member is responsible for the purchasing of new media.

A local consortium helps in volume purchases. The Library Board members are solely responsible for any licensing agreements. Any agreement must be no longer than the length of the board members appointments.

The library offers a wide range of digital collections. Audio books are offered online with a national digital rights management company. The library subscribes to a music service that allows the patrons to download three songs a month with no digital rights management directly to their digital devices. The library is working on streaming technology to provide greater access to its video collection.

Ruth is very satisfied with the community use of the collection. As we toured the library she knew almost every patron by name. She is particularly proud of the digital collection use. She has encouraged the elderly and persons with sight disabilities to take advantage of the E-books variable font features. She told me that many patrons who were unable to hold the large print books due to arthritis were now reading thanks to the thin light readers that are currently available. Ruth uses both circulation statistics and a patron survey to adjust acquisition to more closely match the usage.

The library has unique holdings in a local history and genealogy collection. The local newspaper is archived and indexed by staff members. The local court and public 4 records are indexed and held on microfiche. The genealogy paperwork is an ongoing collection provided by the local community and organized by volunteers. The collection maintains notes and annotations to the census reports for Faulkner County.

The city of Conway has three academic institutions, University of Central

Arkansas, Hendrix College and Central Baptist College within city limits. The Faulkner county library cooperates with the three libraries at these institutions with reciprocal membership. This allows for access to a wide range of material that would not be available with the current budget. The library is also a member of ARKLink, a consortium of 49 other libraries who pool resources to purchase database and library system software at discounted rates. The library also uses a book courier service to facilitate fast interlibrary loan delivery with many other libraries in the state.

Ruth is evolved in many professional organizations. She stated she “lives and breathes a library life.” She is an active member of the American Library Association and the Arkansas Library Association. She is also involved in the American Association for Public Libraries and the Faulkner County Historical Society. She also holds memberships in several local associations such as the Friends of the Faulkner County

Library and the Conway Book Club.

The library has a millage assessed on all property owners in Faulkner County and is assured of yearly funding by the local laws and ordinances. Although Ruth would prefer to have a larger budget, there is not a grant writer on the local staff. The library is also supported by various fundraising by the Friends of the Faulkner County Library.

The association holds bi-annual books sales and solicits donations from members and the public. 5

The library has fifteen acres to the rear of the facility. A small section of the land is currently being used as a sustainable farming project sponsored by Hendrix College, the University of Central Arkansas and Central Baptist College. When I asked Ruth about a special project that was important to her, she pointed to the field behind the library. When the library was built twenty years ago, the field was covered with indigenous wildflowers. As city ordinances were developed, Ruth was forced to have the field mowed on a weekly basis. Over time the wildflowers diminished and eventually disappeared. Ruth stated that her wish and goal after retirement was to have the field restored as a prairie preserve. The project would involve the removal of the back fill that was placed over a small wetland during the construction of the library. The wetland would be restored by local conservationists using regional flora and natural drainage.

The field would be seeded by locally sourced wildflowers provided by the Arkansas

Highway Department, who has a pilot program to restore indigenous flowers to public spaces. The prairie reserve would have several walking trails with signage to promote learning spaces. The entire project would be visible from within the library as both the building and the land slope to the north.

Ruth plans on organizing several community resources to help maintain the reserve. She also mentioned that monetary resource are not the only large obstacle to completing the project, the local codes and regulations currently do not allow planned modifications. The city has an ordinance regarding the maintenance of any outdoor green spaces. Ruth explained that the ordinance was enacted to prevent rental properties from neglecting yard maintenance. The city also has an ordinance on standing water. Any water feature greater than eighteen inches requires a locked fence. Ruth feels that a fence 6 would detract from the natural beauty of the land. Even if the wetlands were excavated to a depth of eighteen inches, the lack of city wide storm drainage would cause the water feature to have a variable depth in the months with large rainfall. Even given these challenges, Ruth maintains that she will see this project done in the lifetime. Ruth made the point that “after forty years of wrangling and negotiating as director, I am used to the fight.

I work for an academic library. This tour has allowed me to see the many differences between the two institutions. I have a new respect for the work load and problems experienced by public librarians. I hope to create many new contacts and resources in the public sector. In these times of budget cuts I foresee a greater level of cooperation between academic, public and school libraries.