Libraries are an important service in any community; they provide windows of connectivity to other worlds, both real and imaginary. But libraries can serve as an invaluable resource for connectivity with the people closest to us, especially for our smaller communities.
The Gilpin County Public Library (GCPL) has been in service to the roughly 6,200 residents of the county since the 1970s. The library has existed in several forms, starting as a small nonprofit that was run by volunteers out of a 1930s-era, 360 square foot cabin with no plumbing.
“In 1984 the voters approved a small mill levy and the library became a County Department for a short period of time,” Library Director Michael Carlson told The Mountain-Ear. “In 1992 the library was organized as an independent Library District. The current building was opened in the summer of 1996 with a later addition added in 2009.”
The GCPL has approximately 20,000 items in its collection at 15131 Highway 119 in Black Hawk; but they are also members of the Colorado Library Consortium, which provides their patrons access to more than 1.2 million items.
“We are one of the few places people can fax, scan, print, and notarize documents now that the Business Connection has closed,” Carlson added. “We also have a large meeting room that community organizations and local nonprofits can use for free. The library also has seven public internet computers and access to free Wi-Fi.”
Carlson began as GCPL’s Director in September, 2016, but has more than 20 years experience in his field that has taken him all over the country.
“I’ve been working at libraries for close to 20 years now. I grew up in Texas, started working in libraries there right out of college, learned that I wanted to move up and become a full-time librarian but you had to get your master’s degree. So I went to the University of North Texas to get my master’s degree.”
Carlson’s persistence landed him a full-time librarian position in Maryland, where he worked for eight years, moving his way up to becoming branch administrator and running his own branch. Carlson then accepted an assistant director position in Billings, Montana, where he worked for a year before accepting the position as director here in Gilpin County.
For the last five years with the GCPL, Carlson has experienced a rocky road through the COVID pandemic.
“We took a big hit, at the time, back in 2020. 72% of our revenue came from the county, which most of their revenue comes from the casinos. So as soon as the casinos shut down that cut off the revenue stream,” Carlson remembered. “We laid off four of our staff members, went down to bare-bone hours; about four hours a day, three or four days a week. We didn’t know if we would survive.”
But in November 2020, the public rallied behind their library and helped pass a new mill levy, allowing the GCPL to operate independently.
“The public really stepped up; you know, nobody likes to pay more taxes, but we passed with almost 65% of the vote. We’re totally independently funded now, so we don’t have to worry about the county’s revenue. The taxpayers took care of us,” Carlson said.
“Hopefully 2020 will never happen again; but we have reserves now and the casinos aren’t paying our bills. We’re fully staffed and we’ve even added more hours.”
The GCPL is now, thanks to the community, a non-profit organization that is funded by the taxpayers of Gilpin County.
“We want everyone, no matter what their income level, to be able to attend all of our offered programs,” Carlson added.
With their community behind them, Carlson and his dedicated staff at the GCPL continue to make improvements and adjust to operating post-COVID.
“We came back stronger than before COVID; we’re not totally back to our pre-COVID numbers, but our circulation is. We set a record for March, so people are checking out material left and right,” Carlson said, but added that there have been some challenges. “We just haven’t totally returned to all our programs, some of our adult programs are still transitioning. People have gotten used to attending a lot of programs online. There’s been a demand for it, so how do you work that into your traditional library services?”
Carlson and library staff are facing these challenges head on, as they are already beginning to discuss and plan adding more online functionality, as well as creating individual study rooms.
“The one thing that we’re going to be talking about here hopefully with the library board at our next meeting is we’re wanting to create more study rooms,” Carlson added that the need for residents to have a place to do job interviews and attend online meetings for business or health became extremely apparent post-COVID.
“We have the large meeting room and we have one little, bitty room that we kind of use as a hybrid, but it would be nice to have some study space. Especially in Gilpin County, our internet goes out frequently.”
“Last week Centurylink went down in one of our communities and people were wanting to come up here because they had to do some work, so there’s a big demand for quiet study rooms right now,” Carlson continued. “So we’re trying to figure out a way we can do it with the footprint that we have. We’re only 5500 square feet, so what can we do, what can we move around to make that happen.”
While the GCPL adjusts in this post-COVID workscape to incentivize attendance to their adult programs, their children’s programs continue to be incredibly popular.
“Right now our biggest success is our children’s programs. We do LEGO STEM robotics; we don’t even advertise them much anymore because they’re so packed,” Carlson said. “We do one for the younger kids on Tuesdays and one for the older kids on Thursdays; but with the younger kids we have so many people wanting to utilize it that we’re probably going to have to add another one on Wednesdays.”
The GCPL will also be kicking off their annual Summer Reading Program in May. Contributing groups will have events during the Summer, including HawkQuest (https://www.hawkquest.org) and the award-winning Rocky Mountain Puppets (https:// rockymountainpuppets.com).
When asked about the favorite part of being the GCPL’s Director, Carlson spoke from the heart.
“It’s the community, it’s knowing the people. I’ve worked in larger systems and they were huge communities and you didn’t really get to know your people on a first-name basis, but here you do. You get to celebrate the birth of a child, but then we’ve lost a lot of patrons over the years, too. In a large library you don’t really get to experience that, but these people that come in every day you get to know them.”
The Gilpin Public Library is located at 15131 Highway 119 in Black Hawk. Library hours are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information call 303-582-5777, or go to their website at www.gilpinlibrary.com, or their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ GilpinCountyPublicLibrary/.
Sponsored by Gilpin County Commissioners, with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.
