2020 Update from Red Feather Library

By Creed Kidd

Preliminary figures for 2019 are here at Red Feather Lakes Community Library.

Physical item circulation was relatively flat  at 32,533, a 150 item drop from 2018 and the first flat year since 2011 — when annual circulation stood at 16,250. I attribute this to an unusually slow fall season.

Public use of the library, however, increased 8% to 21,957 people entering the building.

230 new patron cards were issued in 2019.

Operating hours topped out at 3,175 — representing a slight decrease tied directly to 4 closed snow days during 2019.

The physical items held by the library increased to (about) 15,500 while downloadables (with the addition of Kanopy, IndieFlix and Acorn) increased to an estimated 50,000 items available for downloading or streaming.

Programming in 2019 included 292 individual programs for 623 hours serving 3,858 individual participants of all ages. The latter is an 11% increase over 2018.

Friends of the Library in 2019 funded the re-carpeting of the children’s area, fall materials purchases, additional magazines and the Coloradoan, additional spinners for materials organization, the new hard flooring for the hallway and bathroom, courier service for interlibrary loan, summer reading program incentives,  children’s spring and fall programming, the Greening Santa children’s gift program and has committed to the water improvement project (upcoming, we trust) in 2020.

We’ll have a more comprehensive overview for you soon. with comparative data — while attempting to define the more indefinable regions of patron use and satisfaction.

All this comes about through your considerable efforts in behalf of the library and the larger community. Thank you at the end of another year: Board, Staff, Volunteers, Friends and Users.