Published: May 19, 2009 08:29 pm      

Director expects library usage to continue climb

Board plans to discuss status of new Galveston library at June meeting

Usage at the Logansport/Cass County Public Library continues to rise, according to statistics presented to the library board this week.

On Tuesday, Library Director David Ivey said circulation numbers have increased by 300 percent over the last three years. Because of that trend, he upped the 2010 circulation projection of 505,930 items per year by more than 40,000.

“It’s just phenomenal how busy we are in terms of circulation,” Ivey said.

In 2008, 421,496 items were checked out. Ivey expects that number to jump to 546,722 for 2010. He believes reaching that level is feasible and called it a conservative projection due to usage potentially dropping during the coming remodeling, which might temporarily drive away some library users.

Since Ivey began in December 2005, the library has seen a dramatic change in circulation, commented board president Pat McNarny.

Ivey credited programing, having computers available and buying the material people want, such as DVDs.

“A large chunk of that is audio/video,” said Ivey, who commended staff for handling the extra workload.

Usage at the Galveston branch is also up. In 2005, 6,600 items were checked out. Now the number is about 40,000, Ivey reported.

Ivey announced that he would like to resume talks at the June board meeting about moving Galveston’s library from its 1,200-square-foot space in a storefront next to the town hall into its own 4,000-square-foot facility.

Ivey said two things need to happen before the board decides on constructing a new facility. The library needs to determine its revenue, as well as receive bids back on the Logansport library project, which should happen in July.

The board originally approved the Galveston library project in May 2007, but the project was placed on hold in March 2008 in response to expected drops in tax revenue because of property tax caps passed by Indiana lawmakers.

Ivey said design of the Galveston library was 90 percent complete. About $20,000 more work remains to be done to get it to the final construction phase.

“It’s a matter of firing that all back up and deciding how much we can spend,” Ivey told the board. “In terms of starting up the project, we’re pretty much ready to go.”

The town of Galveston will provide land in the southeast corner of the town park near Ind. 18.

Besides further consideration of the Galveston project, the board will consider architectural drafts of the Logansport library renovations at its June 16 meeting.

• Kevin Lilly is news editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5117 or kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com