Library seeks additional members for friends group
Published 8:41 pm Thursday, March 8, 2018
- Star Photo/Curtis Carden Public Library Director Renita Barksdale said the goal of the Friends Group is to help expand the facility's reach within the community.
Bolstering numbers to support the goals of the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library is the name of the game for 2018.
Library Director Renita Barksdale recently announced an initiative help grow the facility’s “Friends of the Library Group” to accommodate future growth.
“We’ve already rebranded with a new vision and mission statement so now we’re wanting to rebrand our friends group as well,” Barksdale said. “The friends group is very important for our library system. They are our advocates for our library and our link for the community with the library. We want the group to be more diverse and have more people involved. We’re encouraging young people to get involved, too.”
For the cost of $10 each year, the friends group offers a helping hand in a variety of activities at the facility, ranging from special events to book sales.
“We have three ladies and a gentleman that come in, sort though books and make sure they’re in good condition,” Barksdale said about current members working with book sales. “Once they’re separated, we’ll box them up by genre and allow them to be picked up by the public.”
Continually building the reach of the library is something the facility has looked at doing over the past couple of years, according to Barksdale. Recent addition of grants has allowed the library to offer a variety of more-technology based tools to the public. Classes offered are the library, which run free of charge, vary from ACT preparation to computer coding.
“We want to be a place for everyone,” Barksdale said. “This is our community hub. We keep seeing our numbers grow each year and we want to keep offering different resources to the public to be part of the growth in Elizabethton and Carter County.”
Away from the confines in downtown Elizabethton, library staff also partners in a variety of activities throughout the community. The library works with the Carter County Community Advisory Board, Parks & Rec, UT – Extension, Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition and other outlets to offer different events for community members of all ages.
