By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
A little over two dozen residents of Petersburg collected in the Petersburg Community Center last week to formulate a plan intended to provoke some action about their branch of the Boone County Library.
“Our purpose today is to determine what steps we can take to exert influence on decision makers to keep the Chapin library open,” Deborah Dutton Lambert stated in her notes on the meeting. Lambert supervised the meeting. “This may include a letter writing campaign, petitions, and any other means to directly influence decision makers that this library needs to be staffed and remain open. All ideas shall be appreciated and considered.”
Deborah Dutton Lambeert, a resident of Petersburg, listen as another resident speaks at a community meeting last week. (Photo by Patricia Scheyer/NKyTribune )
The people discussed the possibilities at length, and Lambert filled in what she had done at the Library board meeting in August. Another group of residents recounted how they had attended a meeting at the library a year ago, and they had gotten the same reaction from the Library Director, Carrie Herrmann, as Lambert received, which was to say the plans were to convert the library to be virtually self serve, an Express location, due to not being able to hire anyone to staff the library.
“What do you think we can do to get the board to pay attention?” said one resident.
No one had a direct answer.
The residents talked about the library being more of a library, especially to a small community like Petersburg.
“Children would get off the school bus and stay here till their parents could get off work,” said another resident, who is affiliated with the Petersburg Christian Church, where the library originated. “I would find things in the church’s craft room to try and keep them busy during the summer.”
Another resident challenged a statement by the library director that the library was not a babysitter. She said children would rather be at the community center and the library rather that stay home alone.
Someone also challenged her statement that if the children are in the Boone County School District, chromebooks are assigned to each student, so they do have computers. However, some schools allow the students to take the laptops home, and some do not.
Resident at special community meeting discuss the Petersburg library issue. (Photo by Patricia Scheyer/NKyTribune photo)
Lambert said the Boone County Fiscal court has assured people that they have installed wifi at the community center and the playground. She wondered, now that the library is closed, are the children supposed to sit outside the building, sometimes in the rain, with the school laptops, if they are permitted to bring them home?
Someone else said that she heard the job description that the library first posted for an employee to be at the Petersburg library made a Master’s Degree mandatory for the position.
“It doesn’t take a master’s degree to show a child how to use a computer,” she said.
Another resident said she had worked at the library for awhile, and she watched people come and go; an older man, in particular, who would walk to the library, sit and leisurely read the paper, and then walk home.
Boone County Library Director Carrie Herrmann said, first of all, that anyone who applies to work at the Petersburg library does not have to have a Master’s degree. She said the position is a library associate, and they should have two years of college toward an undergraduate degree, or related experience in education. In addition, they would be responsible for a certain number of continuing education hours per year.
As far as the internet coverage, the library does have coverage for their part of the building and a little extra, while Boone County, with their broadband initiative for the county, has extended coverage to parks and other areas. Herrmann said there are two different providers in Petersburg, but with internet, people can access the library’s website.
If people need cards, they can go to a regular branch, or the library has been sending a mobile unit to Petersburg the first Wednesday of each month since March or April. She explained that the date and time for the mobile unit to be in the town is specified in the library newsletter, or on the Facebook page.
The good news is that the Petersburg library, as an express location, will reopen at the end of this month. Herrmann said she doesn’t know the exact day due to inspections happening, but it will be before November.
Herrmann said she has been digging into the Chapin trust fund, and her understanding is that it was a trust fund that the library was supposed to send invoices into, but as far as she could see, the library has not sent any invoices in to be reimbursed for the last 15 years, since they took over the library in 2005. She said she doesn’t know who is in control of the trust.
The library in Petersburg operates with a series of Memorandums of Understanding, with the county and with the fire district. When posed the question, she said the Petersburg library could technically be given back to the community, but she wasn’t able to think about a situation like that happening.
“Since the library has spent funding to set up this new Express Location, we would really like to see how it works,” Herrmann said.
