A couple years ago, a Mt. Prospect reader called to criticize a column bemoaning the tendency of village voters to turn down library referendum proposals.
With home computers and the Internet, she argued, who will need all these big libraries in the future?
But while some northwest suburban librarians see a change in the way their resources are being used, they say the traditional and the electronic sources of information are coexisting quite well. The one surprise is libraries are finding that the introduction of high technology is putting more demands on their staff to help patrons figure out how to use it.
And, as proof that the written-on-paper word hasn’t died out yet, at least two of the area’s big libraries set records for growth in circulation in the last year.
Arlington Heights Memorial Library reported a 6.8 percent increase in circulation for its fiscal year ended April 30 and a 28 percent increase in reference questions answered.
About 2,000 patrons visit the Arlington library daily. Attendance at children’s programs increased 48 percent, and nearly 37,000 patrons registered to use Internet workstations at the library.
“It’s traditional after the facilities are improved to see a bounce up in usage, but we didn’t think it would be such a big bounce, since we already had a high level of usage,” said Kathleen Balcom, executive director of the Arlington library.
“National studies have shown that when people don’t have computers at home, the library is the most popular place to go for access, but it seems that they are still using everything else in the library as well,” she said.
In Palatine, where the library’s fiscal year ends June 30, executive director Dan Armstrong said he expects circulation to show a record 7 percent jump. Over the last seven years, Armstrong said, his library has shown a 120 percent increase in circulation. Arlington Heights and Palatine libraries each circulated 1.5 million books last year.
“The demand seems to be growing for both the traditional library materials and the electronic searches, and they seem to feed off of each other,” he said. “We’re seeing simultaneous growth, and I don’t think we are seeing the end of the traditional format yet.”
“The area where libraries are changing is in the reference and information departments; most of that is on-line now,” he said.
While growth in circulation has not been as dramatic in other area libraries–Schaumburg and Barrington libraries have each shown a slight drop-off in recent months–they all say their staffs are being called on more and more for assistance.
“We see the kind of reference work we do changing,” said Barbara Sugden, executive director of the Barrington Area Library. “Our reference librarians spend a lot of time setting up Internet searches for patrons now.”
Broken family: We all know nobody from Schaumburg would be cruel enough to kidnap the offspring of Louis and Serena, the village’s beloved swans, whose three cygnets recently disappeared without a trace from the municipal building pond.
That’s apparently why some residents are holding out for the natural selection argument, maintaining that some four-footed predator snatched the young swans. But Mayor Al Larson calls that theory “nonsense.”
He suspects a human predator, saying the swans, known to be very protective of their young, are also used to being fed by people. It would have been no tricky feat to swoop up the young cygnets with a net while the parents were distracted with bread crumbs, he said.
“Any animal would only have been able to snatch one at a time, and I am sure Louis and Serena would have immediately taken the others out to the middle of the pond and guarded them zealously,” Larson said.
But despite the loss of their young, the two swans are still doing the job they were hired to do: decorating the municipal grounds while chasing away Canada geese.
The price is right: The Wheeling Fire Department recently obtained a 17-ton “crash” truck, which carries 1,000 gallons of water and foam.
The truck came from the closed Glenview Naval Air Station under a two-year lease-purchase arrangement with the village of Glenview, at a dollar a year, plus another dollar for the purchase.
The truck will be used primarily for fire protection at Palwaukee Airport.
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