Friends Fall 2024 Newsletter

Library Collection Trends, Children’s and Young Adult news, Charitable Donations, Welcome New Board Members.

Link to downloadable PDF version of Friends Fall 2024 Newsletter. Text only version below.

Collection Trends at DPL

Library collections are always in flux. We’re constantly adding new materials to the collection and removing things that are damaged or haven’t been checked out. We try to be as informed about this process as possible and want to make sure we’re maximizing the use of our collection (and collection budget!) so are constantly testing new ways of organizing and displaying materials. Here are some of the trends we’ve been seeing at the library.

In the “adult” collection, we’ve seen a decline in print book checkouts over the past 10 years and a corresponding increase in digital checkouts. These trends were accelerated by the pandemic but were not created by it. Over the past year, digital checkouts are 30% higher than physical checkouts for adult materials. We’ve made some changes to our physical collection to try to slow down this trend. You’ll notice a lot of curated book displays when you you enter the historic side of the building. We also added two shelves of “face-out” books in each case. Library staff try to swap these books out every two weeks so that users are always seeing new covers. These changes have resulted in a 34% increase in checkouts. It turns out people judge books by their covers! Most of this increase in checkouts is in the adult fiction collection; we didn’t see a ton of circulation increases in adult nonfiction or biography. We are starting to experiment with some different nonfiction organization methods to make it much more browsable and to see if we can increase checkouts by making that collection more intuitive.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we haven’t seen the same shift towards digital materials in our Children’s and Young Adult collections. However, that doesn’t mean we can just leave things static! Over the summer, we overhauled the picture book collection so that it’s organized by category instead of author’s last name. So, all the books about farms are in the same spot, all the books about school are together, etc. This change has resulted in a 43% increase in picture book circulations. We increased young adult checkouts by 114% by moving the collection over to the “adult” side of the building. We are also reorganizing junior nonfiction so that it’s shelved by subject rather than by the Dewey Decimal System. The Dewey system is both problematic and unintuitive to use, so we want to move away from it. We’re going to start with junior nonfiction to see if circulation increases before trying it in the adult nonfiction collection.
Looking ahead, we’ve got our eye on reorganizing board books and nonfiction picture books. Every change we make is tested to see if we’re achieving our goals of increasing circulation and access to more diverse materials. Thanks to the friends for all your support of the library!

From the Children’s and Young Adult Department

We had so much fun with the summer reading program this year, totaling nearly 50 programs, with over 1000 attendees total. Some highlights included visiting performers that ranged from live animal presenters to magicians, and our Tie-Dye program that allowed families to bring home custom DPL merch! We also continued our community partnerships with UpperExplorerland through Walking Field Trips, Winneshiek County Conservation through educational programming, and DCSD with read alouds at Kid’s Lunch Club.
Summer also brought several changes to our collection. We decided to make the shift toward subject-based organization in our picture book section, as opposed to alphabetization. The response has been enthusiastically positive! Kids and families love that they can find books about their favorite animals or topics, and our desk staff saves lots of time in the shelving process! It has also had a great impact on circulations, which you can read more about on page 1.

Finally, the CYA department was honored to receive a grant from the Depot Outlet to fund the addition of a Spanish language collection to the library, including Picture Books, Junior Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Adult Titles. In conjunction with funds from the Friends, we have been able to purchase Spanish editions of many popular titles. We are looking to add multi-lingual programming to our schedule in the upcoming year, as well as bilingual building signage and communications, all working toward the goal of expanded inclusivity in the Children’s department.

That’s all for now! Thank you so much for your continued support for all we do over here in the Children’s and Young Adult section. I hear appreciation all the time from families in our community, and it’s all made possible by the Friends.
Warmly,
Sophie Nall

Qualified Charitable Distributions

If you are aged 70 ½ or older and have a traditional IRA you might want to look into Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) as a tax-savvy way to give to the Friends of Decorah Public Library. Instead of writing a check (now that it’s harder to itemize on your taxes due to higher standard deductions), QCDs transfer the money directly from your traditional IRA to the charity. By doing this, the money is NOT taxable to you and is NOT added to your adjusted gross income. These donations can count toward your annual required minimum distributions (RMD). Consult your financial planner and tax preparer for more information about how to set this up.

Friends Board 2024

(L to R) Tom Murray, Sue Luzum, Pat Downs, Sue Ballantyne, Elise Skellinger, Alan Ellickson, Sue Ellingsen, and Cheryl Pellett (Liaison from the Library Board).
Not pictured: Alice Runde.

Welcome, New Board Members!

Sue Ballantyne was born and raised in Cedar Rapids and later attended the University of Iowa for both undergrad and graduate degrees. She worked in education in several different capacities during her professional career, as well as serving on Solon City Council and volunteering on the Solon Public Library Friends Board and Foundation Board. Sue and her husband moved to Decorah in December 2020. When she’s not volunteering for the Friends, Sue is a rock painter with Decorah Rocks, an avid biker, member of two book clubs, and an RSVP volunteer.

Alice Runde (she/her) is a nonprofit manager and lifelong lover of libraries. She has found the children’s books and programming at Decorah Public Library incredibly useful and enjoys sharing it with her two young children. Passionate about community involvement, Alice is excited to support the library by serving on the Friends Board, helping to support the library for future generations.

Sue Ellingsen was raised in Watertown, SD, graduated from Hamline University, and taught middle school band In Blue Earth, MN for 37 years. She and her husband moved to Decorah in August 2019 and have two adult children, Andrew (Decorah, IA) and Kate (Portland, OR). One of Sue’s goals when she retired was to start a local Friends of the Library (in MN) and she shares that “with much assistance, that group now thrives.” Libraries, reading, and lifelong learning are important to Sue and she now continues her Friends of the Library service in Decorah.


Posted: November 19, 2024

Categories: Friends