Library Committee Improvements and Progress

By Carol Van Why, Co-Chair Library Committee
Originally published in the June 2022 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

Library usage statistics show that for many of us, dropping into the Library is a daily event. In fact, last year residents borrowed 1,264 items; shy of the 1,301 loans in 2020 but that was the COVID 19 lockdown year.

​The recent carpeting project forced the Library to close for about a month. By mid-May, the job was finished and the furniture was back in place. We probably all breathed sighs of relief when we realized the light-colored carpet and the room’s wood tones complemented each other nicely.

The Library Committee thanks the Architectural Integrity Committee (AIC), especially Barbara Woshinsky, Ted Lentz, and Sharon Roe, for considering the Library at each stage of the carpeting project. Library 

Committee Co-Chair Faye Herold worked with the AIC team to insure that the Library’s collection was protected during the work itself. It was also Faye who made sure the flood of returned books were reshelved by May 15 and that the Library and book cart sales were open for business soon after.

Unless they are already signed out, you should find many of those recently returned books on the Library’s Recent and Relevant shelves. Stock changes daily so get back into the habit of checking those shelves often.

Stay up-to-the-minute on what’s new by routinely opening your Monday emails from the Library. Eileen Smith, Victoria Tirrel, and Carol Van Why collaborate on the accompanying blog posts to highlight the best of the newest books, and now and then some you may have overlooked. If you don’t think you’re receiving these emails, be sure to contact Victoria Tirrel.

Since 1986 when the Library first opened its doors, books have been arranged on the shelves according to broad subject areas. The first Library Committee members never advocated for a catalog, knowing how exacting and labor-intensive creating and maintaining a reliable one was. Fast-forward to 2022, and now there are utilities available that enable small libraries to create sophisticated catalogs at little or no monetary cost. With Eileen Smith at the helm, we are now in year two of using one of those utilities to inventory the Library’s collection. In only one year Eileen has cataloged nearly 1,700 items, about forty-eight percent of the collection. At this time, residents are not able to search the inventory themselves. For the time being, contact Eileen Smith to learn if the Library owns a book you’re looking for.