The Clay Public Library opened in October 2009. It is located at 7257 Old Springville Road. Photo courtesy of www.claylibrary.com
By Crystal McGough
The Clay Public Library was awarded a grant on Aug. 31 to purchase additional children’s and teen books. The grant was a Library Services and Technology Act grant for $7,000.
“LSTA is a federal program that libraries can apply for,” Clay Library Assistant Director Joy Lee said. “It’s administered through the Alabama Public Library Service. We actually write our grant to APLS. Then they have a committee that meets and decides which libraries receive grants and how much.”
Lee said that the grant process runs throughout the year. It begins with an application in spring, followed by an award letter in late summer or fall. Then, the library has until the following spring to spend the money. The library’s deadline to spend this grant is June 15, 2013.
Once the money is spent, the library must write a final report, summarizing how the money was spent, how many titles were able to be purchased, and what impact the grant will have on the library and community.
No money has been spent at this time, but the library plans to begin making purchases in October.
“(The grant) was written primarily for children’s and teen fiction and non-fiction,” Lee said
. “The emphasis will be on building our non-fiction in those areas. That is the area that we felt like we really had not focused on as much. We’ve been focusing so much on building our DVDs, our books on CD and our fiction collection. We just really felt like this was a need.”
Lee said that many children come in looking for non-fiction school reading and end up having to wait for the books to be shipped from another Jefferson County library.
“What we’re hoping to do with this is that they will be able to come in and find more of what they need actually on the shelf right now, instead of having to wait for that material to come from other libraries,” she said.
The new collection will consist of a mix of school-related materials and other non-fiction books that teens and children may be interested in, Lee said.
The library currently has only one teen non-fiction shelf, which is half full. It has eight designated shelves for children’s non-fiction, but only six of those shelves contain books. Each of the six shelves are only half full, as well.
Lee said that the library has already gotten some positive feedback from parents on the Clay Public Library Facebook page.
“(They) were very excited that that collection is about to grow,” she said.
Although the library uses several tools to purchase new materials, Lee said that the library is looking to create an account with a company called Perma-Bound for the purchasing of many of its materials.
“That’s because those books are very durable and will last a long time,” Lee said. “They have such a wide variety of things to choose from. Probably, a lot of our materials will come through them.”
In addition to grants, the City of Clay provides funding to the library on a monthly basis.
“They provide about $1,000 a month for us to buy new materials,” Lee said. “But this grant allows us to focus on a specific area of our collection.”
Two years ago, the library received a grant for its DVD collection. Last year, it received a grant for books on CD.
“We’ve built those areas,” Lee said. “Now we’re looking forward to building the non-fiction for children.”
