HomeMy WebLinkAbout102020 PENNING, ELAINE - FRIENDS OF THE DANVILLE LIBRARY
Marie Sunseri
From:Elaine Penning <esp46@att.net>
Sent:Friday, October 16, 2020 4:10 PM
To:Marie Sunseri
Subject:Danville Library
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To: Hon. Karen Stepper and Members of the Town Council:
The Danville library is an integral part of our community services, and had been open 56 hours per week. The
County Library funds 35 base hours of service through property taxes, while the Town has funded an additional
25 hours of service through its General Fund. However, at the May 5, 2020 Town Council Special Meeting, the
Council opted not to fund the additional dollars needed to maintain the hours of operation of our Library. At
that time, as an additional cost savings measure, the County decided to discontinue Sunday hours at all
branches. The Council voted and decided to not fund any additional dollars above the County funding. The
Friends Endowment responded to the Community’s need for continuing Library access and granted $50,000 to
help the Town fund open hours through the calendar year. This amount was matched by the Foundation. We
urge you to continue to keep it open at the same number of hours in 2021 for the following reasons:
We believe that when our communities emerge from this health crisis, residents will need their
public libraries more than ever to connect people to information and resources and to support individual
learning and the health and well-being of a community.
With the mandated social distancing and the potential to reduce the number of people in the library at
any given time, the reduced hours would severely limit access.
It is highly likely that there will be a substantial increase in use, as people recover from not being able to
fully access the library. In our Fall 2020 Live Locally publication, we stress to pledge to Support Local. Our
Town Library is a hallmark and should be heartily supported by our residents and Town.
Please also consider that the Danville Library is one of the highest circulating libraries, and continues to be for
library materials.
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Circulation: 312,684 (4 highest of 26 libraries in CCC)
Collection Count: 72,000 items in the collection
Finally, the library wants to be able to continue to continue to support student and adult learners, encourage
discussion and exploration, engage readers and imagination and provide a place for everyone in the community to
access free books, resources and research materials during this challenging time when so many other community
institutions are closed. With schools continuing to conduct distance/online learning, there is an even greater
demand for library access and materials.
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We urge you to recognize the importance of the Danville Library to our community and keep the library open
56 hours a week.
Thank you for your consideration,
Friends of the Danville Library
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