Darien Library Keeps Building on Success: Annual Meeting 5 PM Saturday

Darien Library has a huge circulation of books and other materials, but as people are able to go online for much of that, one of the country’s most successful town libraries has also become a center for children and a place where people get together to meet, work, experience culture, says library Director Alan Gray.

“In effect, what we are is the center of the community,” Gray said in an interview days before the library holds its annual meeting at 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, when some board members will be elected.

Darien author Kristen Harnisch, who wrote much of her most recent novel, The Vintner’s Daughter, at the library, is the featured speaker, and for about 30 minutes library officials will report on what the library has been doing for the past year and what future plans they have. A reception will follow the election of board members.

The library — now located at just about the midway point on the Post Road between Darien’s borders with Stamford and Norwalk —gets more walk-in visitors (as opposed to people coming in cars) than it did at the Leroy Avenue location, Gray said.

If people in town want to meet together to discuss something they’re doing, whether it’s work-related or as part of an association, or even for a hobby or to socialize, Gray said the library is a convenient place to do it. Coffee shops and some restaurants are, as well, but at the library you also have resources at hand to find out more information on a topic, he said.

If people who fly fish want to get together to discuss what they do, they can find a table or some comfortable chairs together, get some coffee at the Frosty Bear Cafe, and if a question comes up that nobody can answer, they can turn to the books, go online at one of the library’s 70 to 80 computers (and get printouts if necessary) or on their own devices or ask a librarian for research help.

The library also is a venue for people running businesses, Gray said. “We probably have 15 people who are running their business out of this library,” he said. Some others, he said, come occasionally to get work done away from the office — some who normally work in Manhattan come to the library to get an employee newsletter written up, for instance.

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See also:

• 32 Facts & Figures from Darien Library’s Annual Report for 2015
• Darien Library’s Annual Meeting Features Darien Author Kristen Hirsch
• More of Darienite.com’s coverage of Darien Library 

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“We provide the opportunity for people to do what they want to do, providing resources that people can take and turn into a success on their own terms,” Gray said. “We’re not going to be a success unless we’re seen as the neutral brokers of public information.”

In the past few weeks, a media station was delivered to the library and now sits in the large second-floor room on the Hecker Avenue side of the building (above the first-floor children’s library). Gray says the station could be used by groups working on projects.

The station consists of a table with a large screen attached to one end and hookups for laptops or tablet devices that allow what’s on one personal screen to be seen on the large one. Everybody at the table can share the same information, discuss it and build on it. Gray says he hopes to get more of the tables at the library, including in some of the private rooms, as the library budget allows.

The library has a large number of programs for children (“more than any other library around,” Gray said), with about half needing registration beforehand and the rest “drop-in” programs. Gray said the (large) numbers of children participating are not as important as making sure their experience is a positive one that helps lead them to a future life of reading.

“It’s often the case that a public library is the first public building that a child will enter,” Gray said. “Often, parents bring in children for their first library card, and we want to make that successful. We want them to know how important literacy is […] so they’re here for life.”

Past year or so

Gray in the interview and other library officials in the recently published annual report note a number of projects, changes and accomplishments in the past year or so. Here are some of them:

• Darien Library, just as Ferguson Library now does in Stamford, will soon (“months, not longer than that,” Gray said) be a place where passport services will be available during the week — sometimes by appointment and sometimes in a drop-in basis. “We’ll have someone who can go over your submission [application] and make sure you meet the standards, and take a photo,” he said. The passport will be sent in for approval and then mailed to the applicant, he said. The library staff is now training to provide these services.
• Early this summer, the projection system in the theater-like community room was updated so that the picture is now clearer.
• Circulation of physical books is down in the past year, but circulation overall is up, with more borrowing of electronic books and audio books.
• DVD circulation is going down because more people are streaming movies and shows online, Gray said. He expects the library to end its DVD borrowing within five years, just as it ended borrowing of music when the library moved to its present building in 2009.
• A year ago, the library updated its geothermal heating and cooling system.
• Last year, the library fixed the roof, replacing some tiles and repairing some gutters.
• A lot of  Spanish-speaking women are working as caregivers for Darien children and come to the library with them, so the library has been buying more Spanish-language materials for them.

The coming year and the future

Here are some of the things you can expect in the future at the library, according to Gray and the annual report:

• The “Main Street” area of the library on the first floor, where the front and back entrances are located
• A fundraising event where people play miniature golf in the library is coming up soon. “Last year was the first year we did it, and we had 705 people who played golf, and that is far more than any library in the country has ever had,” Gray said. This time around, there will be an “Adults Day” and another day for families and children, he said.
• Gray says the library needs more meeting rooms where people can close the door and talk or close the door to get some quiet time to concentrate.
• The library board “is starting to talk to me about starting to get together a long-term capital plan” for spending on major items, Gray said, since the library building won’t be new forever.

Finances

As an “association library,” Darien Library is independent of the town, but attached. The Friends of the Darien Library pays capital expenses and various operating costs, while the town pays for the staff’s salaries and benefits.

In the fiscal year ending June 30, the library had $1,241,242 in revenues from donations, the annual fund and capital fund and from state aid ($68,977) and library operations ($80,244). The library spent slightly less than that — $1,239,118, not including salaries and benefits for employees.

 

Saturday’s annual meeting

At Saturday’s meeting (Oct. 17), Gray said, he expects to talk for a bit about the library’s staff, which he says is the most important asset for a “knowledge organization” like a library.

Gray doesn’t have a library degree. Instead he has a master’s in business administration and worked in finance before joining the library staff . “We used to say in investment banking that our most important assets go down the elevator every night,” he said. “My job is to run air cover for them.”

Officially, it’s a meeting of Friends of the Darien Library, the association of donors who will elect members of the board. The board has 18 members who may serve as many as two three-year terms. With some members needing to leave the board before their terms end, there are usually more than six members elected each year, and they can be nominated by a committee of the board or from the floor.

Anyone who donates to the library is considered a “friend of the library” and eligible to vote. The annual report recently sent to donors has a list of those who gave in the past year. There are more than 1,000 friends; about 40 to 60 usually show up for the annual meeting.