I always enjoy this column, as this is the week when I take a look back at all that I’ve written about over the year and reflect on how the Delaware County District Library has served our patrons throughout 2023.
Leaping back to January, we wrapped up another year of the Winter Reading Club. DCDL patrons have grown to love this annual program, since its introduction in December 2016. For the ’22-23 season, we saw 3,945 bookmarks returned to us, filled with books read and programs attended. We love to see the happy faces who come in to turn in their completed bookmarks, eager to win a beautiful basket prepared by our staff.
In March, the library began a partnership with the Delaware Public Health District. Several classes were offered at DCDL locations that allowed a Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Peer Helper to assist new mothers and mothers-to-be with breastfeeding. Later in the year, this partnership, along with assistance from the Ohio Department of Health and Ohio Breastfeeding Alliance, allowed the library to upgrade some of our public and staff resources for nursing mothers, including a sound machine at the Orange Branch Library public nursing space and a new chair at the Delaware Main Library staff lactation room.
The latest and largest project of the Delaware County District Library was the opening of our Liberty Branch, located on the north end of Powell, at the intersection of Home and Steitz roads. We celebrated our grand opening with the community on Sunday, March 26, then we were open for regular business on Monday, March 27. Introducing a fifth branch (in addition to those already in Delaware, Ostrander, Orange Township, and downtown Powell) to the community was exciting, exhausting, and exhilarating all at the same time. The residents have embraced the branch with warmth and love, and we are still seeing many people discover it for the first time daily.
The Friends of the Delaware County District Library continued their work in 2023, as well. Whether it was through their successful Bargain Book Sales, Young Writers Workshops, or author visits, they were hard at work to bring literacy and library resources to the people of Delaware County. The Friends embarked on a fundraising campaign to equip the Maker Studio at the Liberty Branch Library and set up the Maker Studio at both the Delaware and Liberty branches for future success. They are well on their way to reaching $75,000 in donations and gifts for the Maker Studio!
The library restructured our author visit series and ended our regular series with a visit from YA authors Neal Shusterman in January and Jeff Zentner in July. In the future, the library will participate in one large-scale author visit with a group of libraries from central Ohio, and we will pass along all other local author visit opportunities to the Friends. This year, they had amazing visits from New York Times-bestselling authors Lisa See in June, and Amy Butcher, Lee Martin, and Thao Thai in October.
DCDL’s strong history of community partnerships truly flourished in 2023. In August, Delaware County District Library was named as a recipient of a $2,799 Delaware County Board of Developmental Disabilities Accessibility and Inclusion Grant to provide an adult changing table at our Orange Branch Library. In October, the Board of Directors for SourcePoint reviewed and voted on their 2024 grant funding requests, which recommended funding $7,200 for the Delaware County District Library to update our website and make it more compliant for internet accessibility standards. All of these opportunities will help the library serve our entire community to the best of our abilities.
Many DCDL cardholders know and love the creative offerings from the Delaware Library catalog. These include Culture Passes – free or discounted opportunities for patrons to explore the arts in Central Ohio – and unique items to check out, like hotspots or talking books. Our Culture Pass program flourished with regular requests for passes to the Central Ohio Symphony, Columbus Museum of Art, and Franklin Park Conservatory. In October, thanks to special funding from the George E. Morrison Music Enrichment Fund, Loogs were added to the collection. A Loog is a three-stringed guitar that is an easy-to-learn transitional instrument to a full-sized guitar. They became available on a first-come, first-served check-out basis at the Delaware Main Library, and we hope to continue to add more to the collection after this initial trial period is complete.
Finally, we saw many opportunities for leaders to be introduced, grow, and change in the Delaware County District Library system in 2023. Director Bryan Howard celebrated his first full year with the library, a new management team was introduced to the community through the opening of the Liberty Branch Library, and the staff mourned the loss of our dear friend and former director, George Needham, who passed away in late November.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with the idea that the only constant in life is change. We have seen plenty of change in 2023, and now for 2024, we look forward to stepping into the growth that comes from it. Happy New Year to you, dear readers. I’ll see you again in 2024.
If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Nicole Fowles, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Nicole at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!
