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Those not being served at all are the elderly, and the teens. I think we saw a trend in that last discussion. Adults and youngsters are using the library to check out books, magazines and attend programs. The youngsters have their story time and reading programs. I think that there is no place to put less emphasis, and lots of places where the emphasis needs to happen. The problem lies in finding the time and energy to do all this as a one person show. How do small libraries with one or two people get it all rationed out so you don’t lose your mind? I’m thinking if I can do one program a month for some group, I will have a successful year. I know most of you do much more than that. You all had some great ideas for reaching out to adults.

I struggled with this question for a while before answering. I know that serving both our teen and elderly populations is something we need to work on, but the I am also concerned about the parents of our young families. These parents are very willing to send their kids or drop them off for library programming, but are not using the library themselves. A few years ago parents use to bring their children in for story time and then browse the library while their children were there. Now they hurry in drop off the kids, hurry out and then rush back in and out again when story time is over. I know that they are very busy with the pressures of family, jobs, and activities, but I wonder what can we do to make visiting the library something they can fit into their schedules? One of my concerns is that if Mom and Dad don't seem to have time or place importance on reading and library use, will their kids grow up thinking that being a library user is important?
The group being served the best is our children. I do not really believe that we need to decrease our emphasis on this group, but probably just maintane the current level of service.

My adults are well served and the children, with book discussions and story hour. The teens are what are not being served right now. They come into the library and use the computers but kind of shy away from actually checking out the books. I weeded over a 1000 books out of the teen area that were old and had not been checked out for over 10 years. I have started asking the kids when they are in here what books they would like and have started buying their requests. (Why not, we do it with the adults all the time.) I have put up posters about books that I got off the internet and bought all the new Children's Choice books for this year. (I had 3 checked out today which made me feel good because I just got the poster, booksmarks and the display up lastnight.
How about the rest of you, I feel another group we do not serve is men! I have about 3 men that come in a check out books on a steady basis but they make up about the same population as the women. How do we reach the guys. Even my teens are mostly girls.

I felt bad after I said less emphasis on children's programs in our Library but see you feel the same way. We had 7 children's programs last year, none for the teens and one adult activity which didn't go over. I don't know why the board shys away from the topic when I mention it at board meetings. Finally this fall I am going to try somethings on my own. I have sent for some mystery theater scripts. I would like to invite the teens in, order pizza and have a mystery dinner theater. I ask my teen Saturday help if she thought it would work and she said "Go for it". I guess I am afraid of failure, we have had some failure when trying to do adult activities. Even free lunch won't bring them in.

This is such a hard question for me. I think we could really improve the library's use in all by promoting the library in a new and fun way that would interest all the population groups. We have room for improvement from pre-school age, elementary, JH/HS, parents and seniors. I want to reach them all and make them lifelong users of the library! It is very frustrating sometimes trying to understand your community and how to best serve them. This probably starts with helping the community to see what the libray has to offer in this day and age and for them to make it a priority in ther lives. You make time for what is important to you.

Rhonda Harn
Westgate, PL

I feel that the area we are lacking in is our teen age group. We have started to buy the series that are popular with the teen age girls like the "Cliaque Series" and the "it Girl" series, this has brought some of the teen girls in and they have started talking them up to their friends and they are being checked out quite regularly now, and like theothers that have posted the teens come in to mostly use the computers. We have a book discussion for the adults and that seems to be going well. We have our Story Hours for the children. So again I would have to agree with most of the others that have posted that it is our teens that we are lacking in.

Considering the demographic information I looked at for our community, I can see we need to revamp our parenting section. We need also to do more programming for our young families, perhaps in the evening when it is easier for them to come. We do alot of childrens programming but I feel it is very important and always seem to have that as my top priority. Teen programming is another area, a few years back I did a lot of teen stuff but my young helpers moved on and now the next group coming up is not as willing.
LEldred Springville

Carol, I agree we need to let the teens know that we will order books they are interested in. I try to read as many as I can and then push, push, push. I have had some success. As far as programming first I am going to have to like these kids again. We have had a rash of bad behavior and we are trying to take care of that then maybe... I would like to find a community member that might be interested in taking them on. L Eldred Springville

I agree that it would be great to do some programming for young families, but I am afraid that I could go to a lot of work and not have anyone come. The young parents seem to be the hardest ones to get through the door these days. I know they have their plates full with many thing, so I am not sure what would be a good way to draw them in. I am open for suggestions if anyone has any.

The elderly in the assisted living are the ones we do not see much of. We have alot of regular older people who come at least once a week. We have the childrens programs and are trying some new ideas in place of parties each month. We put up the pop corn box from Upstart and with each 4 books a month they receive movie tickets. We have a $1.00 movie theater. We are getting our young adult section up to speed with lots of current books and they are going out quickly. We are always looking for new ideas.