Library awarded accessibility grant from ALA

Union County readers are about to find it much easier to get library materials. Gibson Memorial Library has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the American Library Association to promote a new accessibility program in which homebound or disabled patrons receive deliveries each month from the library.

The library first applied for the Accessible Small and Rural Communities grant in early December. This is the third year the ALA has offered the grant to libraries nationwide. In order to apply at least one library staff member must be a member of the ALA and the library must share a plan in order to make the library more accessible to those in their community. The library must serve a community with a population of 25,000 or less.

Assistant Director Jordan Foote, who originally applied for the grant, officially heard back from the ALA Feb. 26 with the news of the grant success. Acceptance of the grant was approved by the library board March 3 and Creston City Council March 4. The library was asked to keep the news quiet until all participating libraries had been informed.

Now that the word is out, Foote is excited to get started. The plan is to hit the ground running with delivery, staff taking time out of their days to deliver material each month.

“We have personally noticed a lot of patrons of ours that no longer are able to make it into the library because they physically can’t,” Foote said. “With this, there would be a two-pronged approach, the first one being doing monthly deliveries to those within city limits. If they’re not within city limits, then actually physically mailing books to them.”

Those living in Afton would also get in-person deliveries since he lives there, Foote explained. The grant money would go toward gas for deliveries, as well as mailing costs.

The library also plans to create better relationships with places such as assisted living or nursing homes in order to do bulk deliveries and reach more people. Library Director Danielle Dickinson Thaden said she is open to other “hotspots” as well.

Not only would this help bring the library to those who have trouble accessing it, Foote hopes it also helps patrons who aren’t able to socialize as much anymore.

“If they’re a patron of the community that would be receiving that face-to-face delivery, we’re hoping that would also give them a little bit of a one-on-one,” Foote said. “Who knows how many of these folks don’t receive even a little bit of communication throughout their day. It could be a big deal for a lot of people in our community, especially those that are out further in the community that maybe in the first place couldn’t even get to us very often.”

While the program is new to Gibson Memorial, Foote said plenty of patrons have been requesting it.

“This could be incredible for a lot of folks throughout the county. We know that there are many patrons located throughout the county that, because of their disability, are not able to leave the house very often, if at all,” Foote said. “We’ve heard from some of these patrons, we’ve witnessed it personally. We’ve already heard a good amount of people request it or want to start using it, so I think the future is promising with this additional service.”

The library is still working on logistics, but the plan is to allow about six checkouts a month per person. Since the patron will not be able to browse the shelves themselves, the application form will request information on their interests.

“We’re going to be doing a lot of reader advisory for this,” Foote said. “If people don’t have an exact idea of what they would like to check out from us, we’re going to have to be kind of guessing, picking things that we think this person might like. That form will kind of include all that information.”

Patrons interested can contact the library at (641) 782-2277 or find more information on their Facebook page. The library will also mail out forms to current cardholders.