Mid-Columbia Libraries: System engages with more reading activities

Libraries are the lifeblood of our communities, serving as trusted providers of critical resources, educational training, skills development, and civic and cultural enrichment.

As an intercounty rural library district, Mid-Columbia Libraries (MCL) provides its resources and services to the residents of Benton, Franklin and Adams counties of Eastern Washington. Our mission is to enhance quality of life by providing excellence in books and services for our residents and communities.

We proactively engage our customers through targeted on- and off-site programs for adults and children; we create and sustain strong reciprocal partnerships with local organizations and businesses; and we continually seek ways to plug-in and stay relevant in our customers’ busy lives by providing new and popular materials and services in the most effective ways possible.

MCL accomplished a great deal in 2015. MCL was one of 15 library finalists for the 2015 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. What does this mean? Your library is one of the top 15 libraries in our country. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community.

After many years of contract extensions, MCL and the City of West Richland entered a contract that should guarantee library services for the next six years. Items in the new contract included opening the Mid-Columbia Libraries’ West Richland Branch on Sundays, adding a full time librarian to the staff of the branch, and remodeling the branch in the near future.

MCL completed a successful remodel of the Prosser branch and reopened it to the public in May of last year. We invested more than $375,000 in upgrades to the 6,000 sq. ft. facility, which included new furniture and bookshelves, new interior and exterior signage, new carpet, new paint, the installation of additional power outlets for personal mobile devices, new books and materials, additional public computers, the expansion of the children’s area, custom art installations featuring hot air balloons, and an historic, panoramic photo mural.

Always on the forefront of technology, MCL implemented auto-renewal for our customers. As the name suggests, auto-renewal is a service automatically renewing library materials not already requested by another customer, saving customers’ time. MCL’s expert library system tracks the status of all materials and knows which can be renewed and which are needed back to share with other customers. With more items in homes for longer, MCL looks forward to having more room on shelves to further grow its collection of books and materials.

Our digital collection continues to grow, and we are proud to have the largest downloadable catalog of eBooks and eAudiobooks in Eastern Washington; you have to go to the Seattle area to find a larger collection.

With such a large digital collection and beautiful branches, combined with world-class customer service, our customer satisfaction continues to remain strong. Our 2015 Mid-Columbia Libraries customer satisfaction survey reaffirmed our service to remain on par with Nordstrom.

2016 looks to be another great year for MCL and marks the first year of a new three-year strategic plan. Building upon our current activities, MCL will expand resources and opportunities to create, celebrate, and share the written and spoken word with activities in the community such as BARchitects, Li-Brewery, Vita Cultura, communitywide reading festivals, and author visits, as well as creating readers’ advisories for the Columbia Basin Badger Club.

MCL is continually excited by the potential and opportunities our future brings. We look forward to finding new and improved ways to better serve our communities and taxpayers. We will partner with cities like West Richland to identify funding opportunities to assure vital library services for many years to come. We thank you for your resounding support and appreciation as your region’s public library.

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Mid-Columbia Libraries: System engages with more reading activities."