On Tuesday there were two community forums held about long-range planning for the facilities with the Jefferson Public Library.

The library received a grant through the State Library of Iowa to hire a consultant to assess the two buildings that were built in 1904 and 1966. George Lawson has been working in the library industry, as a former library director and consultant, for 42 years. He’s worked with over 500 clients in 14 states. Community members were allowed to provide suggestions of what they wanted to the library to have for space utilization and things they wanted to discontinue for the next 20 to 50 years into the future.

Comments included: providing smaller meeting rooms for individual use or for small groups, expanding the children’s department to have more programs or better utilize the space for multiple programs to happen simultaneously, adding storage space, but not losing the welcoming feel patrons have when they use the buildings. Lawson talks about a unique feature that may present a challenge going forward with the project.

“The fact that there are really two buildings there, the 1966 and the 1904 Carnegie building, joined by a connecting link pose some service and operational issues that are unique.”

Library Director Jane Millard is excited to see the community participation and interest from the public.

“It is their public library, so we definitely want the public input so that we can keep our library modern, up-to-date and exciting. It’s been great to have that opportunity to bring all these people together to share those ideas with all of the library officials that will be using that input to plan for the future.”

Lawson will compile all of the comments, along with his own observations and data collection, into a report that he will present to the Library Board of Trustees to make the final decision of how to implement any changes.