DUMMERSTON-The future of children's offerings at Lydia Taft Pratt Library will be a whole lot brighter thanks to a $54,700 grant from the Vermont Early Childhood Fund (VECF) to build a new program for children's early literacy and library services.
The amount of the VECF's Building Bright Futures Opportunity grant is the largest the library has seen in its 110-year history and will afford the library the chance to "significantly" expand services for young readers and use more space in the Dummerston Community Center.
The award money will be spread out over nine months, beginning this month.
"We are so grateful to have received this opportunity, possibly the greatest opportunity the library has ever experienced," says Library Director Dena Marger. "Over the coming months, we will be looking to spread the love. We'll be looking to hire local people to help with various aspects of this project, including the building of custom-made furniture pieces, and the hiring of a part-time local staff."
Marger said it was a joint decision among the library's weekly Picture Book Storytime volunteers and herself that led to "dreaming about an adequate space for children" and submitting a proposal for the grant.
"We've never had a very good program before for children," she says. "We have about an 8×10-foot space with lots of books, but we don't have a dedicated children's staff, and we're not open very many hours a week. We'll be able to have a lot more programming and special events - actual things for kids to do in the library that will make them want to spend more time here reading, learning, playing, doing lots of stuff.
"A library is more than a warehouse for books. It's a gathering space. It's a place to promote community. And we're looking to have more gathering space in our library. Without a place to sit and read quietly or engage with other children or gather with other parents, the library is only fulfilling half its mission."
The grant proposal also sought money to hire a dedicated children's staff to place a special focus on expanded services and programs. New children's services will include regular events like story time, Lego programs, art, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activities, and more occasional special events such as author talks, animal visits, and performers.
The goals of the new program all aim to support language development, social-emotional development, resiliency, and peer connections, Marger says.
Library gets more space as negotiations continue
To fulfill its mission, the library will expand from one room in the Community Center. Both entities are in the same town-owned building, the former home of the West Dummerston School, at 150 West St.
The library has been engaged in continuing negotiations with the Community Center to rent more space - space that has been available to rent for more than a year - and the new arrangement will give the library part of another room, at least for the nine months of the grant.
Library trustees and the Dummerston Community Center board will see how everything works out with the once-empty room now being occupied by the children's area and an area for community meetings. Library Board Chair Lyle Holiday said both boards will continue to meet through the duration "to ensure both parties are satisfied with the arrangement."
The previous library space had not been adequate to provide services comparable to those that residents of similar-sized Vermont towns receive, Marger says.
The new grant-funded pilot project is intended to expand the way in which the library is able to support the community by fulfilling needs that no other organization in Dummerston currently fills.
"There is nowhere else that offers free literacy services or community gathering spaces for children and families," Marger says. "An inviting space using flexible seating and a cozy design is intended to attract young readers and their caregivers."
The issue of getting more space for the library has been a source of controversy.
While the decision to rent it is not up to the Selectboard, members Alex Wilson and Thomas Nolan have been supportive of the library, attending several meetings with library and Community Center boards and arguing the library's case, said Wilson.
The Community Center is an independent, tax-exempt, tax-deductible nonprofit organization. The town leases the building to the Community Center Board for $1 a year but has no short-term control over the Center's operations.
The town also pays the Center "thousands of dollars per year to use its smallest room for our library. This is an arrangement that long predates our tenures on the board," said Nolan.
While the two continue to help facilitate a successful negotiation, Nolan admits the process has been a "strange and frustrating situation."
"While the town library was in need of more space, just such a space was available for rent for about a year, but the entity that manages the building for the town chose not to rent to the library," Nolan told The Commons, noting it was "not something the board could immediately control."
"Thankfully, the library has a passionate librarian and an energized and persistent board of trustees, and a deal has been negotiated to give them use of most of the room right away so that the library can take advantage of the incredible grant that it received," he added. "It would have been a tragedy if the town had lost out on this grant, especially since it would have been self-inflicted."
Speaking for himself, Nolan said he believes "the obvious remedy is for the building to be given to a combined library/Community Center board with the majority of the building being dedicated to the library."
"The town currently provides approximately half of the Community Center's budget in what we pay to rent the library's current small space at a rate of $525 per month," Nolan said. "With the grant's funding, this will increase to $900 per month, covering nearly all of the community center's budget - and yet resulting in perhaps one-third of the building's square footage.
"It clearly doesn't make sense and the situation is stifling the library's ability to function. Our spending for the town's library is modest and, in my opinion, inadequate. For perspective, the town of Dummerston budgets more for diesel fuel than it does for its library."
"A town is more than roads," Nolan continues. "Without a thriving library, a small town lacks a soul, and it shortchanges its children. We can afford to fund an incredible town library. In the near term, the library will be able to function in a slightly expanded capacity, but we desperately need to prioritize our library."
'A step in meeting the library's needs'
Community Center Board Vice President Randy Hickin says the board has agreed to offer the library "50% more space" than it currently rents and that the rent, for half a room, will be "50% less than what they're currently paying."
"The other half of the room is going to be a community room," Hickin says. "We have larger rooms, but they rent for bigger groups."
He calls the space "a step in meeting the library's needs. Not all at once, but significant, so they can set up their children's library and there will be a smaller space for other library meetings. They can also use some of our larger rooms. We have an agreement on how that will happen. I think it's good for everybody."
Hickin admitted there have been issues but says, "we're finalizing things and we're getting over the hurdles."
"Like anything, there are some hurdles and personalities," Hickin says. "The Selectboard has been involved, and it's been agreed, and we're in the process of writing the lease. We're in good shape and we're moving ahead. It's a lot of discussion and things have to be hammered out, and you have to bend and use the Socratic method and come to some kind of agreement on a lot of little things."
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.