Sterling Public Library needs more friends.
Specifically, the non-profit Friends of the Library is looking for new members and new board members. Established in 1985, FOTL's mission has become intertwined with that of the library itself. The group committed $35,000 for budget year 2022 to support library programs and other needs, adding 15 percent to the city's own $222,140 budget for the library.
Best known for its annual used book sale, which typically beings in several thousand dollars a year, FOTL engages in a number of activities to promote the library, such as serving lunch at the end of the Summer Reading Program to participants and families, delivering Wee Books on several Mondays to daycare providers and assisted living facilities, judging the library's annual Hallowe'en costume contest, decorating a tree for the library's annual Christmas tree display and hosting lunch for library staff in December.
That's in addition to the long list of library programs FOTL supports. Most of the programs already are budgeted by the City of Sterling, but Library Superintendent Sandy VanDusen said the organization's financial support goes a long way in expanding those programs.
"We already do those things, they're in our budget, but (the Friends') support helps us do it better, and do more with what we have," VanDusen said.
That funding helps the library host a guest author, buy activity bags and banners, advertising and gifts and prizes for library events, among others.
In addition, FOTL funding pays for the library's Ancestry.com subscription as well as access to Mango Languages, a language learning website, and Cypress Resume, an online resume building site. The group also pays for the supplies for the library's Story Walk around Columbine Park.
According to Friends Board President Jackie Reynolds the annual book sale plus a couple of endowments have left Friends of the Library in excellent financial health.
"We're not strapped for money." Reynolds said.
But the Friends are suffering from a shortage that money can't fix. They need people.
The group is looking for new blood and, frankly, the younger the better. FOTL boasts 123 members, but it is not a young group. Each year, it gets harder to move and then remove the thousands of titles that are offered in the Friends of the Library Book Sale. The books are stored on tables in borrowed storage space, and each year books and tables have to be moved to the sale point – under the Logan County Fairgrounds grandstand for the past several years – and then moved back again.
Reynolds said members and spouses generally have done most of the heavy lifting, but the chore is becoming more onerous as the group's members age.
"It's not just us, but our (spouses,) who pitch in to help," Reynolds said. "It's a lot of hard work and we have fewer people who can do it."
The group also would like to find an all-in-one space where it can permanently store its books and tables as well as hold the annual book sale. Reynolds said it would require less than 1,000 square feet.
"We take in books all year long, as we pre-sort them as we go, and lay them out on the tables they way they're going to be displayed," she said. "It would be great if we could find a space that we could do that, and then open it to the public for the book sale so we wouldn't have to haul them back and forth."
Anyone interested in becoming a Friend of the Library should contact VanDusen at (970) 522-2023 or stop by the library to pick up a membership form.
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