Another year has come and gone, 2009 has come to a close. I know, you are thinking I must have been in a coma or something because a month of 2010 has already passed. This time of year though is the time for Kansas libraries to look back over their recently completed year and do one of a number of things. Well, two things at a minimum really. We are compelled to complete an annual report for the state if we want to remain an accredited public library. The second thing we do is look over that past year for areas to improve and for trumpet-worthy accomplishments.
I have spent a bit of time each day for the past couple of weeks working on both HPL's report to the state and looking at what improved last year. One thing is for certain, the budget did not improve. But the ever-resourceful HPL staff found many ways to stretch our dollars and provide quality services. For example, we served 33.3% more children through our various programs than in 2008. That represents over 3,000 more opportunities to show children what the library has to offer them than in 2008 - incredible! Our materials circulation was up this year too. For the first time in my tenure we broke the 400,000 item barrier. That means that in 2009 slightly over 1,200 items per day every day were either checked out or re-checked. I think that is remarkable! I am going to attribute part of that last figure to Wowbrary. This free service sends you a weekly email detailing all of the new things we have added to the collection in the past week. Thank you to our Friends of the Library group for that subscription!
So, I get to compile all these numbers and the management team gets to hear me grouse about creating "yet another bureaucratic pile of non-sense" but once it is done, reflection can be quite illuminating. By doing this sort of task, I am reminded that I have a truly wonderful, extremely hard working group of people here at the library and for that I am indeed thankful - and you should be too!
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