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Date: 4/11/2023
LUDLOW — The Hubbard Memorial Library has begun the journey of a strategic planning process with the help of the community.
“In general, we are here to serve the community so the hope is we get feedback from enough people and a diverse group so that we can really have some projects to work on to help support the lives, interests and live long learning of the people in Ludlow,” Reference and Technology Librarian Tracy Snow said.
The Hubbard Memorial Library hosted a public forum on April 1 to hear feedback from the community and were pleased with the responses.
“We had a small group but the forum went really well,” Snow said. “I think it was an important conversation to have with people in our community to get some feedback on how we are doing and where they would like to see us go in the next five years.”
Most of the conversation revolved around ways the library can get involved in the community through outreach opportunities and ways to help different demographics in town.
Snow added, “The demographics are changing. In line with that, we wanted to see how we can serve the different populations in Ludlow. Things that we can have in our materials collection.”
National Library Week is from April 23-29 with the theme “There’s more to the story.”
Snow added how this theme adds to the overall goal of the library.
“It celebrates all of the other things libraries can offer you besides just books,” Snow said.
Marketing is another discussion point that the community and library would like to see improved.
Snow added, “Our biggest struggle is getting people to know what we have here. A lot of the feedback that we got in the forum was I didn’t know you had that or that we have three different streaming services for e-books, audio books and movies.”
There is an app that you can ask those streaming services along with online course and language learning courses that other residents have access to.
The Hubbard Memorial Library also has a program called the “Library of Things” where they have items besides books that you can rent out for a week using your library card.
Some of those items include tripods, tablets, Bluetooth speaker, lightsabers, robots, auxiliary adapters, laser pointers for PowerPoint presentations, microphones.
Snow said the library is always looking for suggestions to add new things as well.
Snow said, “We have things that we check out to the community that seems like a lot of people don’t know about. A lot of our conversation had to do with marketing and getting the word out about what we have here at the library.”
Another message that Snow received from the forum is the need for more community collaboration between departments and organizations.
Snow said, “How can the library partner with other services in town to have either resource people come here and be available or how can we go out and use other spaces in town to create events.”
Other issues discussed were limited parking, space constraints and accessibility issues.
“We have limited access to parking and some accessibility issues in the building as well. We are an old historic building with a lot of potential but has space constraints. We look for different ways to work our space to serve the community better,” Snow added.
Although there was a small turnout for the community forum on April 1, Snow said they are more plans in the works to get feedback from the community.
Some of those plans include sending surveys to the community, meetings with community stakeholders and hosting a teen focused group to gain more feedback before writing up the final strategic plan for the library.
The goal is for the final strategic plan to be done by October of this year.
Snow said, “We really want to show people the value of the library and not just the benefits to them. There is real value as it is free and open to everyone. We want to support not only people who come to the library but reach out to people who we can provide services for.”