By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Wood County District Public Library Director Michael Penrod takes the phrase “county district” seriously in the library’s name.
The library has worked diligently to extend services beyond the library’s brick-and-mortar buildings in Bowling Green and Walbridge, Penrod told the board of trustees at the Sept. 14 meeting held at the Walbridge location.
The library has been successful in reaching additional residents through bookmobile visits, growing school partnerships and record participation in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
“We serve about half of the county land area and about half of the county population,” he reported. The service area includes Bowling Green and the school districts within the county that are not served by another library.
The library’s bookmobile is a huge contributor to outreach across the county, making public stops at parks, apartment complexes, schools and community centers, while also visiting preschools, nursing homes and other facilities where there is a captive audience, he said. It travels as far north as Northwood, Walbridge and Millbury, and as far south as Hoytville and Fostoria, outside city limits.
Also, for the third consecutive year, the bookmobile is a vendor at the BG 4×4 Fest on Oct. 3, and will be at the Millbury Street Fair on Sept. 26 and at the Northwood Fall Festival and Parade on Oct. 10.
“We are out and about; we do everything we can to serve,” Penrod said. “I just wanted to highlight all those ways we are far more than the Bowling Green Library or Walbridge Library, and how we stay district focused.”
Deputy Director Michele Raine reported staff also are reorganizing the bookmobile’s collection to make it easier to tailor materials to the audiences at individual stops. Additional carts have been purchased so staff can quickly change the selection of books on the vehicle, particularly when moving between adult-focused and youth-focused stops.
The bookmobile currently carries about 3,500 items. By comparison, the Walbridge library collection has about 21,000 items, while the jail library has nearly 3,000. Raine said the separate collections are customized for the audiences they serve.
“We can wheel the carts with the appropriate materials on and off the bookmobile,” she said.
Digital-library access also has improved following an additional $100,000 commitment for digital content approved by the board during the summer. Penrod said the average wait for an e-book or downloadable audiobook through the broader Ohio digital library had been about 59 days, while with the additional local digital content funds, the wait for titles in the WCDPL collection has been reduced to five days.
Another major point of discussion was the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which currently has 4,466 Wood County children enrolled.
With Parton’s recent death and the focus on all the good she did, her Imagination Library has seen a major increase in visibility. Usually, the number of new enrollees and those graduating from the program is about the same. This month, Wood County had 213 new enrollments and 91 graduates.
The library will mail 4,447 books during September at a total cost of $10,500.38. The state covers half of the cost, while additional state fundraising is covering the local share for the month. Penrod said program costs are rising as enrollment increases.
Local fundraising efforts continue to support the program. The Bowling Green Kiwanis Club recently gave $5,000 to the Library Foundation, designated for the Imagination Library, while the library is also seeking support from other local organizations and businesses, Penrod said.
Information Services Coordinator Kristen Wetzel reported strong results from its community outreach during August events at such as Rally BG and Campus Fest. She said the library added 217 library cards in August this year, compared with 79 in August 2019, attributing the increase in part to maintaining a presence at downtown and campus events.
Youth Services Coordinator Maria Simon also highlighted Reading Buddies, a weekday program offering reading and homework help to children after school. The program runs from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and is staffed in part by America Reads students from Bowling Green State University through grant funding.
“We have some people who come several times a week and then some people who just come once a week. But that’s really an important service that we’re providing for school-age kids and even younger kids that want to be read to,” Simon said. “I encourage families to definitely take advantage of Reading Buddies.”
She also mentioned that the children’s librarians will participate in the Kiwanis Cornhole Tournament on Sunday to raise money for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.
“We see a lot of grandparents at the library. There are some that are blessed to be able to do those visits, and then there are some that are raising their grandchildren,” Simon said. “We recognize just how significant that is and the support. We know that that’s a really wonderful group.”
Some of the upcoming speakers’ programs at the library include:
- “AI on Trial” in partnership with the Wood County Law Library on Sept. 22.
- Author Edmund Kruszynski on Sept. 23.
- Former Ohio Lieutenant Governor Nancy Putnam Hollister on Oct. 8.
- Horror writer/author and In the Round speaker Shane Hawk on Thursday, Oct. 22.
