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Escondido library reports new metrics, strong mall outreach; director highlights events and staffing shifts
Summary
Library staff added 'new cards' and 'unique borrowers' metrics to monthly reporting, reported higher new-card counts at the mall location versus the main branch, and highlighted recent outreach including an Easter event (about 800 participants at the library table), bilingual story times, Nowruz outreach and a Trader Joe's donation for programming.
The Escondido Public Library reported new monthly metrics and a busy slate of outreach and programming as the system prepares to reopen its main branch.
Reno, the library director, said staff added 'new cards' and 'unique borrowers' fields to the monthly statistics to show per-person usage rather than raw registered-borrower totals. "We also added, more importantly, unique borrowers," Reno said, explaining the intent to distinguish people who actually checked out items in a month from the larger pool of registered accounts.
Reno reported the mall location is averaging roughly 700 new cards per month while the main library is in the 550–600 range, noting that month-to-month variation can occur based on school schedules and special events. He said staff will check and confirm next month whether the 'new cards' metric includes online-only registrations.
Program highlights: Reno said the library's table at the mall "Easter Extravaganza" drew about 800 participants to the library portion of that event. He noted bilingual story times reached roughly 170 patrons across three sessions, teen and tween programming continues to grow, and smaller events such as an entrepreneurship talk attracted about 16 attendees. Reno highlighted a Trader Joe's donation that supported a flower-arranging class and ongoing outreach to senior-living communities.
Reno also described inreach and outreach events: a Medicare 101 class served five patrons in a near one-on-one format, and Nowruz outreach at the California Center for the Arts drew about 750 community members to the library table.
Staffing and operations: Reno announced that the former children's librarian, Amy, has moved to teen and young-adult services and that the library is actively recruiting a new children's librarian. Reno said data corrections occasionally appear in monthly reports and that staff are color-coding unverified items until they can be double-checked.
Why it matters: the new metrics give trustees a clearer per-person view of usage across physical and digital services; outreach numbers illustrate demand for returning in-person services and inform staffing and program priorities.
The trustees praised staff outreach and programming. No formal policy changes or budget allocations were adopted at the meeting; staff said they will return with any requested data breakdowns in subsequent reports.
