Washington library opens survey

WASHINGTON — Library staff are asking the public to provide feedback on the building’s resources, programs, catalog, and overall priorities.

The library has launched a survey — available on its website — that administrators say will shape the building’s strategic plan. The form is open until Sept. 15, after which the board will start combing through results, checking other data, and brainstorming ideas, with the goal of enacting a new strategic plan at the start of next year.

“As everybody knows, libraries over the last couple of years have really changed their services, and our community’s personal habits and ways of using the library have changed too,” Library Director Cary Ann Siegfried said. “This is a perfect time for us to reassess where we are and where we’re going and what the community needs from us.”

Siegfried said getting that feedback was important.

“A public library serves the community,” she said. “The services that are offered, both in terms of services within the facility as well as programs we offer virtually, should be decided by the community … so we really need input from the community on what they need.”

The library board hopes to complete the strategic plan by the end of 2022. While the expected launch in early 2023 would be about a year ahead of schedule, Siegfried said it was needed.

“Our current strategic plan actually doesn’t expire for quite a while … but when that strategic plan was put together, that was pre-pandemic, it was kind of like another world,” she said. “And, the end of this calendar year (will) be in time for the city’s budget planning process.”

Siegfried said she hoped to gather responses from all over the community.

“What we want is responses from different areas of the community,” she said. “We would like teenagers to respond to the survey, we would like young families, just like we would like senior citizens to respond. We would like to hear more from our Spanish-speaking community, which is why we had the survey translated.

“More important than the sheer number of responses, is for us to really have broad and diverse responses.”

The library is also seeking responses from community members that aren’t regular patrons.

“We would like to hear from people who use the library as well as people who don’t,” Siegfried said. “Sometimes they don’t realize, in terms of priorities for the future, that, ‘Oh, this is a service my public library could provide,’ … so I would love to hear from non-library users just as much as from folks who use our services.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com