Fort Dodge Public Library Site Visit

Post date: May 20, 2013 1:36:22 PM

Fort Dodge Public Library Site Visit

The Fort Dodge library was much larger than I remembered from visiting a few years ago with one of my friends. They have a staff of eight full-time employees including the director, with two part time and two people who come in to shelve. They would also have a custodian on staff, but at the moment they are using an employment agency to cover that position. Two of these employees have Masters degrees in library sciences, the director and Rita, the assistant director whom I interviewed. There is a volunteer who comes in to process materials, another to do repairs, and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program does a Book On The Go program where they deliver materials to those who are home-bound.

The building is relatively new, being built in 2001, compared to the old building, that was built in 1903. This building has a special room for story time that is decorated sort of as a jungle, as well as room for a play area with a puppet theater and busy blocks. Tech services have their own area and so do the genealogy department, the historical society, the Karl King Municipal Band, and the Friends of the Library have a bookstore built into the entryway.

Their programming is mostly centered on children’s and teen’s events, as there are a lot of areas around town to provide educational programming and events for adults. Also, many of their policies are posted online but there are several signs posted on various materials to make sure that they kids can play uninterrupted in their area and that the adults can study or read uninterrupted in their areas. Fines are $.10 per day for materials that are not DVDs but have a one day grace period. On the second day, the patron will be charged for both days that they have missed and so on. There is a maximum fine of $5.00 per material. For DVDs, there is a $1.00 fine per day with a maximum of $7.00 per item. For interlibrary loans the system is different, and those are late so rarely that they don’t always charge the fine unless it was very late. The hours that the building is open make it easy to be able to return an item because unlike many of the surrounding libraries who close at noon on Saturdays, the Fort Dodge Public Library closes at 5:30pm.

The quiet and studious but friendly atmosphere allowed me to wander through the many collections without raising many eyebrows. They have very large teen, adult fiction, and nonfiction sections, although their other sections were generous as well. In the children’s area, there was a separate smaller shelf full of non-fiction materials to help new mothers, featuring books such as What to Expect When You’re Expecting: The First Few Years as well as baby name books and many others.

After talking with Rita, the location problem that I though would be apparent turned out not to be a problem at all. There happens to be a Romantix, adult pleasure store located kitty-corner on the square, which the library is in the center of. The owner is actually a very proud library supporter, and many of his regular customers use the side door so as to not be seen from the square. The actual location problem which she brought up was that while the library was built in the downtown area in order to hopefully revive some of that area’s life, the new school systems are being built in the business section of town, which is on the opposite far edge of town as the library. The new middle school will open in the fall, so it will be interesting to see how many middle school aged children still manage to come to the library after school or not.

Their website is very nicely organized and it has tabs with drop-down boxes that make everything easy to locate. The neutral navy and beige color scheme makes the kids events, which are posted in bright colors, really pop with a cute effect.