From analog to digital

Despite the impact felt by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Carbon County Library System (CCLS) ended the 2019/2020 fiscal year relatively well according to Jacob Mickelsen, CCLS director.

Mickelsen provided an annual update to the Board of Carbon County Commissioners (BOCCC) during their rescheduled August 25 meeting at the Platte Valley Community Center. As part of that update, the director provided the BOCCC with information on multiple subjects including the economic impact of the eight library system.

“Just a couple of months ago, I celebrated my fourth anniversary as director and discovered that we do, in fact, have a statutory obligation to deliver to the commission an annual report which we have, more or less, done in the past,” said Mickelsen. “It’s not like we just go beg for money and don’t tell you anything but I wanted to maybe formalize that process with a once-a-year rundown of what the library did in its last year.”

That statutory obligation can be found under Wyoming State Statute 18-7-106. That statute reads “Each library board of directors shall keep a record of all its proceedings, file in the library all vouchers for expenditures, and after the close of the fiscal year submit an annual financial, statistical and operational report to the county commissioners and to the Wyoming state library. Whenever practical the annual report shall contain information and data requested or required by the county commissioners and the Wyoming state library.”

According to Mickelsen, the library system saw a decrease of approximately 20 percent in terms of physical numbers but saw digital numbers increase by nearly the same amount. Mickelsen credited this change in numbers to COVID-19 and the closures of all the library locations earlier in the calendar year.

Despite the effect of COVID-19, the library system reported approximately 106,707 items in its physical collection and 43,132 items in its digital collection. Mickelsen added that CCLS was adding anywhere from 10 to 30 items a day, so he suspected that the number of physical items were closer to 108,000. The digital collection, meanwhile, is not maintained by the library system, but a service provided by the Wyoming State Library.

Additional data provided by the director showed 66,674 checkouts, 42,904 visits and 15,013 reference questions answered by library staff.

“A reference question is whenever anybody really needs help finding an item, wants to know a piece of information,” Mickelsen said. “Basically any interaction other than, ‘Hey. How are you?’ An interaction to gain information we consider a reference request.” 

Out of the 54 public computers connected to the internet, 18,949 computer sessions were logged in the last fiscal year. Inter-library loans, a service in which libraries can borrow physical items from other locations for their patrons, saw 3,173 items borrowed between CCLS and other library systems. The library system also saw 748 reservations made for the six meeting rooms in the system.

“Meeting rooms are another really key thing, I think, in that a lot of these groups maybe wouldn’t have anywhere to meet. We have great facilities in Saratoga, we don’t necessarily have these same facilities everywhere and it’s not like this building is free to the public to just come in and have a little PTA meeting,” said Mickelsen. “Alcoholics Anonymous meets regularly at several of our libraries. These smaller community groups really, really do utilize those spaces.” 

In terms of programs and activities, CCLS reported 303 storytimes and classes for children and 122 adult programs and classes with 25,201 total program attendees.

“Normally we have about 5,000 program attendees, but we’ve been broadcasting storytimes from the Saratoga Library, the Rawlins Library and the LSRV Library and those videos have been viewed well over 20,000 times and counting,” Mickelsen said. “So, that is not going to go away once we start having kids come back in. We’re going to definitely continue to give them the online stuff. It’s great for homeschoolers, we got a lot of viewers from out-of-state.”

According to Mickelsen, a program provided by the American Library Association allowed him to enter the data presented and give him an approximate return on investment for Carbon County citizens. An example provided by the director was $15 in value for a single book circulation as it would cost approximately $15 for a patron to purchase the item. 

Each dollar spent by Carbon County resulted in $6.41 back to county residents in the form of library collections, services, programs and facility use. Additionally, while it cost $65 per open hour for the library system, patrons received $421 per open hour in value.

“That’s in terms of access to our collection, in terms of using computer software and in terms of if people have to rent meeting space,” said Mickelsen.

Mickelsen added that the Carbon County Library Board was preparing to finish up their updated strategic plan. The plan was put on hiatus following the temporary closures and, according to the director, the updated plan would put more focus on flexibility and sustainability.

“(We) Wrapped up the year having spent just about 87 percent of our budget. We really tried to be stingy and rolled over everything we could which has enabled us to make a couple small personnel changes that we wanted to, that will help with retention this year,” Mickelsen said. “(We) Continue to really, really watch our bottom line. We know the next year is not going to be easy but we feel like we’re set up pretty well.” 

“I want to thank you for that last comment. We are coming into a new shortfall but I’m excited to see how you’ve endured the COVID deal,” said BOCCC Chairman John Johnson.

Mickelsen replied, “We wanted to make sure we learned something from this.” 

The Board of Carbon County Commissioners will have met at 9 a.m. on September 1 at the Carbon County Courthouse in Rawlins. The next meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners will be at 2 p.m. on September 15 at the Baggs Higher Education Center.