Community Highlight: Lake Odessa Community Library

Podcast Transcription

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Maddy: Hi listeners. Thanks for joining me for another episode of PFCU's Money Talk Podcast. I'm your host Maddy and I am sitting here at the Lake Odessa Community Library with the director, Jennifer Salgat. Thanks for joining me today.

Jennifer: Thank you for meeting with me.

Maddy: Of course. Thanks for having me here at the library. This is great. I love to be on site at places when I can. And I have actually worked with you guys for the last few years with your story times we do once a year with PFCU, which has been a lot of fun. So, it's great to sit down with you and chat a little bit.

Jennifer: Are you the one that wears the duck costume?

Maddy: I do not wear the duck. I read the book and I let someone else be the duck. I'll do it if needed, but you know. I feel like it's a rite of passage to be the duck.

Jennifer: Yes, and the kids love the duck.

Maddy: The kids love the duck, yes. So, Jennifer, how long have you been with the library?

Jennifer: I've worked here for 13 years. I started in a very, very small capacity, working 10 hours a week, doing all the jobs that no one else wanted to do, and worked my way up, and then I've been the director for the last six years.

Maddy: Nice, do you love it?

Jennifer: I love it. Don't tell my board, but I would work for free.

Maddy: I don't want word to get around.

Jennifer: But they pay me to come here, and I love that too.

Maddy: Good, that's awesome. So, libraries are such a wonderful community resource. I think most people can agree with that. Could you share a little bit about what you guys offer to the community, just in any capacity, maybe things that people don't realize are offered?

Jennifer: Well, we have our monthly programs that are on the calendar. We have weekly programs for all ages. A lot of what we do are based, programs are based on literacy and promoting, but in a very unique way. Right now we have our home-based education that's actually meeting. I don't, did you pass through a patrons outside?

Maddy: Oh, yeah, I did. Yeah.

Jennifer: We have about 40 home-based education students that come here on a monthly basis. So, what we've done is take a very typical fairy tale that they might have learned growing up since they were young. And then we do a STEM project with it. So, they're learning about Jack and the Beanstalk today. And they're learning about how things fall. And I guess you would say that's kind of like...

Maddy: So, like relating it back to...

Jennifer: Any kind of math or science, yeah, with a little twist to it. So, they have a very large angled run lined up and they're dropping things down this run to see tying it back to Jack coming down the beanstalk very quickly to see how things roll down this slide or creep down the slide. So, it's very interesting that we take a literacy idea, and then we add to it to make it more fun and exciting for kids. So, we have story time every week we have after school programs for all ages, and then we also do a lot of adult programs like crochet tonight is our first crochet class. One of three classes and that's for all ages and we have yoga on Saturdays. So, it's more than just books and discussions.

Maddy: Right. Yeah, that's really cool. And is it just free? Can anyone just go to these things?

Jennifer: Absolutely! We used to charge for the supplies. And then we decided, well, how about charge like a registration fee. And then once they come and their spot is secured and they actually show up, we give them their money back. And now we rarely charge for anything. We have a very generous friends of the library group and they donate towards all of our programming.

Maddy: Speaking of funding and things like that, could you speak to that a little bit more about how libraries are funded?

Jennifer: Sure. It's very unique. We have the ability to levy taxes on people to raise money, but we're not necessarily a government entity. I think libraries are very unique that way. So, it's interesting because the residents of Odessa Township pay through their property taxes to the Lake Odessa Community Library, but they also pay an Ionia County tax that all of the residents of Ionia County pay and that makes the Odessa Township residents unique because they pay twice for this library. And so, we're very aware of that. We know that our residents pay dearly for this with their hard-earned money and so we try to serve them to the best of our ability. The Ionia County tax is divided among the seven libraries of Ionia County. And that is renewed every 10 years through votes. The Odessa Township tax is forever. There's no ending date. And that was done in the 1980s. And I don't think that would ever happen again in this day and age. You would always want an end date to some kind of tax. So, we're very aware that this is a unique situation. We're very well-funded. We have very generous residents of Odessa Township. I feel like we're very transparent with our finances and we make really good use with the monies that were gifted like that. Another way a library is funded is through penal fines. Do you know what penal fines are?

Maddy: I don't. I would love for you to explain it.

Jennifer: Traffic tickets. So, if you've ever gotten a speeding ticket in Ionia County, thank you because you've supported your Lake Odessa Community Library or another library in Ionia County. I think Michigan is the only state where penal fines go to the libraries. So speeding tickets or any kind of moving violation goes to your library so that's kind of nice.

Maddy: That is very interesting. I never would have guessed that.

Jennifer: And then the state of Michigan also has monies that it distributes to the residents of the state according to how big of a population your library serves. So, we service over just over 4,000 residents so we get a little bit, it's a small amount from the state of Michigan.

Maddy: Okay, so it's kind of coming from some different places. Yeah, and it sounds like you guys are making good use of that money and all of the things you have going on and even just walking in here.

Jennifer: It's beautiful, isn't it?

Maddy: It is, yes.

Jennifer: We remodeled in 2015 and it was a very small building to start with. It was the site, I think a few businesses were here. One of them is the movie theater that used to be in Lake Odessa was this building. So, when we...and I wasn't the director there at that time, but we started taking down some of the walls, and well, it wasn't us, it was a professional company. That would be fun though. And they found some movie type artwork that's been saved and moved to the historical society. I think there was a picture, a hand painted picture of like Mickey Mouse back when this was a movie theater. So, it's been a few different businesses, but we finished the remodel and moved in in 2015.

Maddy: Very nice. Yeah, it feels like when you walk in, and this feels like a different.

Jennifer: This is the older corner.

Maddy: Yeah, like there are sections.

Jennifer: Yes, you can tell because in the newer area, the floor is cement. So, it's quiet. And then you walk back, like how you walked here to my office, it's a little louder because it's a wooden floor. So, you can hear the echoing a little bit.

Maddy: All right, so if people wanted to support their local library, how could they do that?

Jennifer: That's a good question because support doesn't always mean just giving a donation although we often get very generous donors that like what we're doing and agree that we're valuable to the community. I would never turn away a cash donation. If you were to donate sometimes you might have a specific area you want the money used for and that would be a restricted fund and we would absolutely honor your wishes. Sometimes people just give some extra and that's fine too. Right next door is the Meyer Bakery, so some people support us by bringing us donuts.

Maddy: Oh, very nice. You know, every time I come here, I always stop at the bakery.

Jennifer: Yes, a lot of people do. That door between the library and the bakery is always moving. We also have supplies that are donated, and my staff is amazing at finding new purposes for old things so we might be given a box of yarn and then all of a sudden, we have a crochet class we're going to have for the community. So, supplies are always fun to get. We have a lot of donated books. Most often people are cleaning out a loved one's home or an attic and they ask if they can donate books and I love donated books. It's kind of fun to go through and see all the titles and sometimes we use them and sometimes we sell them for a dollar and sometimes they go into the recycling bin to turn into another book someday. So those are different ways that you can support. I think one of the most important things that you, a person could do is to share our events because we are so busy. Most of our library events are promoted on social media and that seems to be hit or miss sometimes. We used to put ads in the newspaper that has kind of like gone away. But if we had people that shared our events or liked or commented on our posts, that would be a really good thing to do for the library, just to reach more people, the way social media works.

Maddy: Right, and I hear that so often from people in different organizations, like just follow our page and share things, like it's as simple as getting on social media and just being active with our page that helps get the word out and that's really as basic as it gets, just go on your Facebook and follow and share. Speaking of that, how can people find you, your website, your social media, all of that good stuff?

Jennifer: We are very very active on Facebook. We have a small Instagram account but because of maybe the age of our staff. Instagram isn't our friend. So, Facebook is the best way to find out what we're doing and where we're located and what our contact information is. We have a pretty basic website, lakeodessalibrary.org and that has a calendar and all of the information also.

Maddy: Yeah. I know I've visited your website before and yeah, there's just a nice, if anyone's interested in going there, you have a nice calendar that lists by month, all the stuff going on, so check it out. Is there anything else you would like to share about the library?

Jennifer: I do have one thing I wish more people could understand and it's not always easy to explain, so I might make it worse by trying to put it into words. But libraries in Michigan are, we have residents and we have non-residents. And libraries in Michigan are sometimes, there's different types of libraries. And we are a district library. And in Ionia County, my patrons are based out of the township they live in. So, my home patrons are Odessa Township residents, which means their taxes go to support this library. A lot of people will come in and ask for a library card and they want a resident card, not understanding that they might live in a nearby township, but still have a Lake Odessa address. Oh, okay. Or they live just across the line into Barry County, and they're actually closer physically to the library than someone that still lives in Ionia County, you know, it's very confusing on how libraries kind of like break up their residents and non-resident patrons. So just having to explain that multiple times a day. It would be, I wish we could very succinctly have it listed somewhere.

Maddy: Right.

Jennifer: And it's not that we don't service people. Once you walk in the doors, you are our patron and we will do everything we can to help you with, with finding information or giving you access to resources. But, um, because of our system, our library system, our computer system, we have to have residents and non-residents, and we are also part of a co-op. Most public libraries are part of a co-op and our co-op rules are different based on if you're a resident or a non-resident. So, we have a few hoops that we have to jump through, and people are very understanding when we have time to explain to them that they might actually live close to the library, but their home library is in the township they live in. And we just happen to be at the very southern part of Ionia County, very close to two other counties, and all of our kids go to the same school district. And you might have an address.

Maddy: So, on their mind, it makes sense.

Jennifer: Yes, yes. So just explaining that, and it's not that you get a different service, except when it comes down to digital books. And that's because of co-op rules. I can't give non-residents access to digital collections, because that's shared by the co-op. So, I don't know if I made that worse or any better explaining that.

Maddy: It sounded good to me because I had no idea that was a thing. And it makes sense now that you say it.

Jennifer: Well, I try to spin it in a positive way. So, if you lived, we'll say you live in Woodland, Woodland Township, I would love to give you a library card and you get a library card. But you also get a library card in your home township. So, you, in a positive way, to spin it you actually can have two library cards. You would have one for here, and you would have one at your home library. So, yeah.

Maddy: Okay. You just wouldn't have that access to, like you said, eBooks and audio books. The digital, okay. Yeah. Let’s close part 1 of my interview with Jennifer with some library facts and stats. Join us again for our next episode and we will wrap up our conversation with some really great tips for reading and kids for March is Reading Month. Thanks everyone!

Jennifer: Do you want to hear some library facts that I find very fascinating? In the Lake Odessa Community Library, the year 2023, we have checked out 22,371 items and checked in 22,732 items. I think that's pretty amazing.

Maddy: Yeah. Wow.

Jennifer: Almost everything that got checked out got checked in. Yes. So, we offer Hoopla, which is an app that has e-books, audio books, TV, music, movies. And in 2023, we had 2,109 downloads. And Libby is also an app that most libraries have. We had 3,684 downloads. So, I think that's pretty amazing.

Maddy: Yeah.

Jennifer: We also do interloans. So, this is where being a part of a co-op is really great for a small library, because we don't have to have every single title on the shelf. But strangely, we borrowed from other libraries 1,426 items. But we've loaned out 4,461. So that means our collection is in pretty high demand and it's very relevant and I find that personally very validating because I can't have every item. But apparently what we do have is they're great. Yes. So, in total, from our very small class two size library, we have 1,378,054 items available because that also includes all the e-books and the audiobooks. But we also have a section called library of things. I don't think I talked about that earlier. We loan out power tools and sewing machines and irons and ironing boards, laminating machines. Let's see, someone has asked for a metal detector, which I would love to get, and my dream would be kayaks because wouldn't it be cool to use your library card to check out kayaks? And we live in Lake Odessa. There's a lake three blocks from the library. The hardest part of that will be deciding where to keep these kayaks, because I don't only have space here and I don't think people want to load them up on their car. So somehow, I have to figure out how to get them. But that's my goal for the summer of 2024. So, the statistics back to those, we had 83,300 minutes on our public computers and there were 14,021 wi-fi logins so people that used our wi-fi. Which during Covid we made available 24/7 and actually added new access points so that the wi-fi could go back behind the library into the alley and out the front towards main street so it's pretty big signal and it's available all the time for people. We have 978 current active patrons that live in Odessa Township, and 450 current active patrons that live outside of Odessa Township. So that's pretty amazing that half of our patrons are not in the township.

Maddy: Very cool. Well, thank you for sharing.

Jennifer: You're welcome.

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