Community Survey Results Part 1 Hours

 

4-19-2024

This month the Strategic Planning Committee is meeting several times to pour over the results of our community survey from February as has the Library Board of Trustees. For the next few weeks, I will be responding to those results. We are very pleased with the results of the survey for many reasons.

The first being the number of participants. In early meetings, the organization leading the process gave us somewhere around 40 responses as the number we should look to receive. I challenged our community to a minimum of 100. With the help of fliers at our local Do It Best hardware store (Which appears to still be called Martin’s? The new owners are very nice by the way and love libraries.), East Troy Pharmacy, Gus’s, IGET (East Troy Area Intergenerational Community Center), and Hanson’s IGA (which also stuffed fliers in grocery bags) we received 106 responses.

Of those respondents, 24% described themselves as Infrequent and Never Library Users. To have that many people who are not already invested in the library participate felt like the biggest win. About 40% of those respondents were honest in stating they aren’t likely to ever become library users. That is a challenge I leave for another day. In the meanwhile, the most frequently selected motivators for using the library were better hours and more programming of personal interest. I’ll come back to the programming issue in a later article.

Hours are an issue the Library Board is interested in exploring. At this point in the year, we aren’t able to make significant changes to our schedule. Adding hours to our schedule has a financial impact on our budget most notably due to hourly wages. More hours require more staff time. The Library Board passes our Operational Budget in August. It is then passed on to the Village of East Troy to be added to their overall budget process. Ultimately the final budget is passed by the Village Board usually in November.

This summer the Board will look at ways we can to make changes. With the size of our staff, I think it unlikely we will be open on Sundays. Saturdays are difficult enough. Expanded hours on days we are already open may be a possibility. My question for East Troy is, what hours would be most helpful? Monday nights? Saturday afternoon? Before 10:00 am. If you have an opinion, let us know. We have contact information available on our website for phone, email and Facebook accounts.

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey and the local business that helped up promote it.

Reading Now: James by Percival Everett, Dona Barbara by Romulo Gallegos (PBS 100 Great American Reads list)

Listing to Now: Shattered by Kevin Hearne (Book 7 of the Iron Druid Chronicles)