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Caldwell Public Library reports rising use, urges facility planning as space tightens
Summary
Library staff told the council at a workshop that visits, program attendance and outreach have increased; staff highlighted a new holds locker, growing summer-reading participation and limits of the current facility and said facility planning will be part of the next strategic plan.
At a city workshop, library staff reported rising visits, program attendance and outreach and urged council members to include facility planning in long-term discussions.
Lacey, a library staff member, presented the Caldwell Public Library’s annual update and listed staffing, program and service highlights. “We really are a community space,” Lacey said, describing meeting-room bookings, outreach and a recently installed holds locker at Luby Park that staff said patrons used before the city publicly announced it was operational.
Lacey said the library employs 19 full-time staff, one part-time staff member and two seasonal part-time staff. Adult services introduced the Hoopla digital lending platform this year; staff also secured a grant to expand large-print holdings tied to the Talking Book service. Reference transactions rose about 70% year over year and adult-program attendance increased about 50%, Lacey said; staff linked those increases to broader program offerings, more family and multicultural programming and rising needs for technical assistance such as help with job and rental applications.
Outreach staff reported about 800 homebound deliveries and roughly 2,400 outreach interactions across more than 70 community events, including monthly visits to Farmway Village and regular programming at the senior center. Youth services reported more than 5,000 attendees across library youth programs (fiscal year 2024) and said summer reading had 1,700 sign-ups and distributed about 4,225 prize books.
Lacey noted that volunteers remain important: 18 volunteers donated 737 hours to summer-reading work. The library also reported 846 meeting-room bookings with over 1,200 attendees in recent months.
Councilors praised the library and asked about future steps. Councilor Williams said the city should do more to communicate that the library is more than books and asked whether rebranding had been considered; Lacey said the library had a new logo in recent years and said rebranding and expanded community embedding are options but that the building’s physical space is the main limitation.
Councilor Olga said the city should plan now for a new facility rather than waiting. Lacey said the library’s next strategic plan will address facility options and noted that Cushing Terrell is scheduled to present facility options at the library board meeting on the 26th. Council members also discussed bonding as a possible funding tool to address long-term facility needs.
No formal action or vote was taken at the workshop. Library staff asked the council to consider facility planning in long-term budgeting and to continue support for outreach and program funding.
