Rural libraries have become far more than repositories for books on loan.
These days, rural libraries offer everything from a place to print your own iron-on T-shirt transfers, passport and Notary services, costume and appliance rentals, a room for telehealth appointments or a laptop for Zoom meetings or job interviews.
“Our libraries have turned into the social hub of our communities, at the heart of every community throughout Michigan,” says Deborah E. Mikula, executive director of the Michigan Library Association.
Of the about 400 library systems in Michigan, many are small and rural. Rural libraries bring the world to their small, sometimes remote communities and catering to those community needs has spurred unique programming.
The Peter White Public Library in Marquette stands out as an example of a library providing a host of non-traditional services.
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Peter White Public Library Marquette's public library hosts a Repair Cafe monthly to help residents mend household items.Its “Library of Things” offers non-traditional materials. including games, gadgets, tools, baking equipment, electronics and more. They’re all available to check out with a library card. Patrons can also check out musical instruments and borrow art prints for their homes. Most of the art is by local artists.
“Our ultimate goal with these things is to build community and break down some of the huge divides we are experiencing,” says Andrea Ingmire, who is director of the Peter White Public Library, which serves Marquette and five surrounding townships. “I think it’s one of those things we do really well. Every library I talk to has the same philosophy. People come in and ask for something. You can’t meet everyone’s needs but we try to be responsive.”
In Menominee, the Spies Public Library offers a unique service — a seed library.
The service was started about two years ago by a librarian assistant, an ardent gardener. On offer are seeds for herbs, fruits, vegetables and flowers. Seeds are donated by area residents to be shared throughout the community at no charge.
“Local gardeners use it quite a bit,” says Mary Koshorek, a librarian assistant at Spies for the past 15 years. “It’s been quite popular. The library saw a need and found a way to fill it.”
As an “offshoot” of this unique “library,” the Friends of Spies Library group holds a plant sale in conjunction with its annual summer flea market. Representatives of the local master gardener organizations are on hand to offer patrons advice about their purchases as well as how best to plant the seeds and tend to their gardens.
Non-traditional services vary by region and by the needs of the community. The Escanaba Public Library, for example, hosts Tech Tuesdays once a month to help patrons with a slew of tech-related issues, everything from creating an e-mail to how to get started using a Chromebook or iPad.
Board games, puzzles, and toys have long become a part of library collections. The St. Ignace Public Library hosts a LEGO Extravaganza the last Saturday of each month so children can take advantage of its vast Lego collection. The community room at the Bayliss Public Library in Sault Ste. Marie is the home of the Sault MI Winter Farmers Market each Saturday. Vendors sell local produce, freshly baked bread and sweets, handmade home goods, and more.
Across the state
At the Otsego District Public Library in southwestern Michigan, patrons can check out a device that reads aloud lines of text on labels or books or select a portable CD player to play audio books in cars that have no CD players. Parents and grandparents can borrow totes of activity kits that help youngsters conduct science experiments, learn colors and numbers, or even master tying their own shoelaces.
In neighboring Plainwell, the Ransom District Library’s design room offers a 3-D printer, media conversion equipment for turning old home movies or videos into computer files, a button maker and more.
In northern lower Michigan, the Presque Isle District Library’s Rogers City branch has a perpetual book sale by free will donation, a prom dress and accessory closet, also by donation, and displays of live tortoises and a tarantula.
“The nearest pet store is in Alpena, and a zoo is even farther away,” says Amber Alexander, the library director. “So, this just provides a little bit of animal culture for people.”
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Presque Isle District LibraryPresque Isle District Library in Rogers City offers everything from prom dresses, desktop computers, and meeting rooms.What’s even more surprising than tortoises at the library?
Presque Isle has acquired the town’s
vintage movie theater as an additional library branch and community venue. Its mission? To bring culture to the county, which makes the theater such a good fit for the library, Alexander says.
Providing a diversity of services locally “is a big deal,” says Otsego District Public Library Director Andrea Estelle. “I think people really enjoy having these options here. We don't have as big a library of ‘things,’ per se, as some other libraries do. But I think it's wonderful that libraries are able to offer those things we do.”
Among the unique services at Marquette’s Peter White Public Library is a Repair Cafe held once a month. Working with the Marquette Sustainability Coalition, the library offers space for volunteers to repair broken household items, everything from bikes to lamps to KitchenAid mixers. The goal is to not only help residents save money but also to reduce the waste of repairable household items.
The back story
Since the pandemic, the demand for local services and supplies has grown among libraries, says the Michigan Library Association’s Mikula.
“Our rural and small libraries are picking up a lot of services that they probably didn't do 10 or 15 years ago, because they're not available anywhere else and the community has definitely asked them to help, Mikala says.
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Otsego District Library Andrea Estelle, Otsego District Library director, shows some of the items available to patrons.An example: Connecting people to the unemployment agency.
“Some people don't know how to do that, or they might not have internet at home,” she says, “(but they) have to do everything by online forms these days.”
In meeting various community needs, Mikula says, rural libraries face three major challenges.
“One is obviously their geography. They're a little bit more isolated,” she says.
The second is staffing. Small libraries may only have one or two staff members and directors in the smallest libraries are not required to hold master's degrees.
“That puts a little bit of a little bit more of a challenge of, you know, learning the ropes while you're on the job,” she says. “In the rural and small libraries, you have to be the jack of all trades. The people working there have to know a little bit about everything.”
A third challenge, providing those libraries with the levels of support they need.
Last year the annual Michigan Library Association hosted a
pre conference session geared specifically to frontline library staff from small and rural libraries.
It was filled.
Going forward
Mikula says the hope is for the return of a conference for small rural libraries that was hosted every two years through the Library of Michigan. That conference has not resumed since the pandemic. Until it does, the association hopes to continue with some level of programming “to make sure that the small and rural libraries are not being left behind,” she says.
“We had wonderful sponsorship this year through the Library of Michigan and through our
Library Cooperatives of Michigan,” she says. “If we can secure that kind of funding in the future, we will continue.”
And as prices on so many things continue to rise, one of the main goals of the Ransom District Library is to continue to provide its free services — “the same kind of awesome innovations that you can find in libraries in bigger cities, says Joe Gross, the library's director,
“We have long prided ourselves on figuring out how to scale for our budget and size but still provide things like that,” he says.
In Marquette, Ingmire and the staff at the Peter White Public Library continue to keep an eye on what services could be added to their offerings. Among the issues top of mind is elder care, a concern for many across the region and country with aging parents. The library is working with the Marquette Senior Center about possible programming.
“A lot of these unique programs have come out of desire to meet the needs of the community,” Ingmire says. “Our intent is to be helpers.”
Ann Dallman and Jason M. Karel contributed to this story.
Rosemary Parker has worked as a writer and editor for more than 40 years. She is a regular contributor to Rural Innovation Exchange and other Issue Media Group publications.