A road map for the future is near to finalization as the Neuse Regional Library prepares for expansion in Kinston.
With groundbreaking ceremonies for the city on the horizon, library leaders and staff members are looking now at ways they can serve the three-county area in the next decade.
A 24-member Community Planning Committee, with members from Lenoir, Greene and Jones counties, have developed a seven-point program that has been endorsed by library staff members. The program is designed to help guide the library in its quest to continue fulfilling community needs and anticipate future growth.
“We have to do more,” Friends of the Library President Mike Parker said. “Our citizens have needs.”
The committee is working with Robert Bergen, former librarian, N.C. Central University professor and past president of the State Library Board.
“You have one of the best libraries in the state,” Bergen told the committee at its first meeting in February. “You have a jewel here.”
As if to prove his earlier statement, Bergen on Tuesday said the library ranks first among 15 regional libraries in the state for answering patrons’ reference questions; second of 15 in library visits per capita; third of 15 in public Internet workstations per capita; first in the percentage of the population who are registered library users; second for staff members per 25,000 people served; third in non-print circulation, and first in materials expenditure per person. The Neuse Regional Library ranks in the top 25 percent of public libraries in the state in nine major categories.
The committee last month developed 10 response areas on which members said the library should focus its efforts. The list was sent to staff members who worked with Bergen to trim and consolidate the list. The result was seven areas of concentration.
Most libraries decide to focus on only five areas, Bergen said. The larger number proposed by committee and staff members seems to fit with the library’s high rankings among other libraries in the state, he said.
Areas of concentration, or response areas, should include the following:
- Basic literacy services: An emphasis on all races, preschoolers, pre-kindergarten to grade 12; Spanish-speaking, English as a second language.
- Current topics and titles: With an emphasis on all users, school age to adults.
- Formal learning support: Emphasis on K-12 and home-schooled students.
- Cultural awareness: Includes local history, an emphasis on all ages and all races, racial and religious awareness.
- Information literacy: An emphasis on school-age users and adults; computer resources.
- Commons: Greene and Jones counties need meeting space; Lenoir County needs to use meeting space.
- General information: Includes business and career information, local history.
The library already provides service in most of these areas, Parker said, but the emphasis will become more focused.
Bergen will meet again with the staff to identify goals, objectives and activities for each of the service priorities. He will meet again in May with the community committee to finalize the plans and discuss a marketing strategy. The final plan will be presented to the Library Board for approval in July.
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