Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/8/2021
WILLIAMSBURG – Beverly Bullock, director of Library Services in Williamsburg, would like you to answer a few questions. The survey will help guide the Meekins Library over the next five years.
“It was a process. It took us quite a while to put it together,” Bullock said of the survey. “We had a committee of four, and we’re using a survey company.”
The survey can be completed until Dec. 13, on the website for the Town of Williamsburg. The questions orient toward ease of library use, what expanded hours would be preferred, available services and information, and any suggestions for improvement. Four areas of library activities, Bullock said, will get more attention under the new five-year plan, the land being one. Bullock hoped that outdoor activities will become appealing library events.
“We want to do more with the property we have, the land,” Bullock said. “We’d like to develop that a little more, which would include ways to use our property for outdoor readings. We don’t even know.”
Bullock, who came to the library about six months before the pandemic hit, would like to see more planning for technology. She observed that libraries, with the issues of internet accessibility and the digital divide, and the explosion of online resources, can make a big impact on the lives of users.
“Technology is so important to the world and to libraries,” Bullock said. “We’ll be working with the senior center ... to make sure people have access. Seniors don’t know how to have a Zoom appointment with their doctor. That’s the kind of thing we’d like to target.”
Better communication with the Council on Aging is a hope-for improvement. Another stakeholder group that Bullock wants to cater to is the schools and students.
“We’re going to work on our relationship with the school,” Bullock said. “’We could always have better communication, and possibly even more collaboration, with the community and the school. I want to strengthen that relationship. That’s a target area.”
Bullock wants Meekins Library to engage other community groups, like the Grange and Senior Center, to strengthen the library community, which includes Chesterfield and Goshen, Ashfield and Worthington. She estimated that 50 community members, town officials, library staff and volunteers worked to create the survey.
“We’re trying to work more with the community (and) other groups,” Bullock said, “that would be doing projects and events with other groups in town, and try to grow our community. That’s where my heart goes. I like to build strong communities.”
The survey for the Meekins Library can be found at https://www.burgy.org/home/news/meekins-library-survey.