Baird checks in as library director

She wants library more

accessible and patron-friendly

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--When Carolyn Baird arrived last month to assume duties as director of New Ulm's Public Library, she found her staff had turned her office into a temporary work area while the staff work area was being repaired and re-painted.

The damage and inconvenience caused by a multitude of water leaks are now almost a thing of the past, Baird said, and she has sole possession of her office.

However, Baird didn't let the repair work slow her in making changes which she felt were necessary in making New Ulm's library more accessible and more patron-friendly.

"I've started by addressing some of the building issues and some of the collection issues," Baird explained. "In the process, I would like to refurbish that collection and make it more accessible. Some of those collection issues that we're addressing already involve moving some shelves around to make room."

"It's not unusual to see Carolyn on her hands and knees with a measuring tape, deciding where something should go," said one staffer.

She put her philosophy into action with the arrival of the new reference desk.

The desk had been designed with gates at either end to secure the reference area. Traffic in and out of the reference section was to be controlled because the library had lost several expensive reference books.

The desk is in place, but it's not a security checkpoint. Instead, Baird is moving the reference section into a more open area. Baird told the Library Board she would prefer losing a few books to restricting access to reference works. It wasn't wheelchair-accessible. Also, she didn't like the idea of people walking behind the desk, close to the cash drawer.

She changed how the fiction video collection is indexed. Now, it will be indexed by title, instead by access number, so it's a more easily browsed collection.

"The numerical is very nice for the shelvers, but it doesn't do much for the patron," Baird said.

"Our large print is extremely crowded and too high," Baird noted. "Our patrons can't reach them. That population is not going to climb onto stools, and we don't want them climbing on stools. So we're lowering it and expanding it so they can get at it."

It's those sorts of issues, Baird said she's trying to address, the most immediate needs.

Soon after her arrival, she also was meeting with her boss, City Manager Brian Gramentz, and other city staff to plot a course in dealing with the library's maintenance and building issues.

While dealing with those immediate needs, Baird also is taking a longer view.

"I want to start a volunteer group (to help serve patrons) and start looking at how we can serve people who can't come to our library," Baird explained. "Populations such as shut-ins, maybe reaching out to the jail, delivery of and reading-to things that are sort of an out-reach, and finding new ways of doing things."

A number of these ideas already have been tested during her three years as head librarian at Litchfield.

"It was very successful in Litchfield, and it was expanding every year," she said of her out-reach efforts there.

By going to the region's website (tds.live.mn.us), library "patrons can search our catalog, they can place holds on-line, they can request things from their terminal. They are delivered here, and we notify them that they are here."

Baird said she plans to create a web page for the New Ulm library that patrons could access any time.

"It answers questions like how do I search the catalog, and other questions of how to search other sources. They need to have that kind of information available to them all times of the day when we're not open to access materials. Through a website you can very much help the community utilize our resources."

Baird said there were several reasons why she chose to leave a job at Litchfield which she enjoyed immensely to come here.

"It is a larger library, and New Ulm has quite a commitment to their library, financially and otherwise," she explained. "There's a lot of community involvement to it, in supporting the library over the years. My impression is it's a very strong public library, and I've come in to some very nice resources."