Elektra Greer, Nederland.  Happy New Year! Have you heard? Robots are coming; augmented reality has arrived, and Alexa can read your child a bedtime story. So, who needs a library anyway? Turns out, we all do!

Self-driving, voice-activated, bitcoin-funded cars may be the exciting future of pizza delivery, but 2018 showed us the world still needs and loves its public libraries! The Nederland Community Library continues to thrive as a place for communal learning and shared resources. If you’re looking for socially responsible investments for 2019, look no further!

Each year brings new opportunities and challenges and 2018 was particularly interesting as it proved the old adage, “what’s old is new again.” In keeping with national trends, our Ned library showed that print books are back in favor (over eBooks) and audiobooks weren’t far behind.

Where’s our vinyl?

Though print books are the bread and butter of our library, there is a continued demand for downloadables and since we hate long hold lists on Overdrive as much as you do, we’re investing more in that part of our collection. We were very excited to see that the investment in lending nontraditional items has exceeded expectations, with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science pass and State Park pass placing in our top 10 most circulated items. Good news: we’ll be including many more “Experience” opportunities for 2019, including the Butterfly Pavilion, the Denver Art Museum and hopefully the Denver Zoo. (Yes, before summer break starts!)

Give us your suggestions; what cultural passes would you want available at your library?

What else have our year-in-review numbers shown us thus far? Not surprisingly, librarians love metrics so keep reading for a few highlights, and if you still haven’t had enough, check out Library Research Service at https://www.lrs.org/data-tools/public-libraries/ for all the data of your dreams. Spoiler alert: Ned performs very well in most comparables!

For 2018, our top 10 circulating items were: 1. Children’s’ Learning-to-Read Book bags 2. National Geographic Magazine 3. High Country News 4.

Consumer Reports 5. Denver Museum of Nature and Science Museum Pass 6. Juvenile iPad 7. Early Literacy iPad 8. Game of Thrones DVDs 9. State park passes; 10. Victoria and Abdul DVD.

How’s that for an eclectic mix? We’re truly serving the public--all ages and interests!

Our top 5 circulating books were: 1. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah 2. Look for me, by Lisa Gardner 3. Educated, by Tara Westover 4. The Outsider, by Stephen King and 5. The Stonekeeper, (Graphic Novel) by Kazu Kibuishi.

Our top 5 circulating DVDs were 1. Game of Thrones 2. Victoria and Abdul 3. The Mountain Between Us 4. The Shape of Water 5. Star Wars Episode, VIII.

Our top 5 circulating audiobooks were 1. Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling 2. Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood 3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling 4. The Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel 5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling.

We’re still waiting on our downloaded reports to find out about our top 5 picture books, but we’re pretty sure Pete the Cat is in there somewhere!

With regards to our overall traffic, patron visits and programming numbers went up with over 55,000 visits in 2018, though our actual number of items being checked out slightly dipped. We’re hoping that’s because we’re so fun to visit, you don’t always come for the books!

If you are wanting to know what to look forward to in 2019 (and there’s quite a lot!), be sure to sign up for our e-newsletter and check out our website. Kay Turnbaugh has been doing an incredible job keeping us dynamic and current; here are a few numbers to impress: we had 25,056 page views last year, with an interesting amount of international clicks; 358 page sessions from Paris, France; 42 sessions from Muju-gun, South Korea; 32 visits from Beijing, China and 31 from Naples, Italy! Quite a global community!

This past year also saw several staff and volunteer changes, including Library Assistant Marni Siegal coming on board in May (already irreplaceable!), Tom Lambrecht taking on the role of Assistant Director (phew, we needed him!) and a heartfelt goodbye to Director Jay Mann who left in May. Times of transition always bring a bit of tumult and the Library Board of Trustees went above and beyond ensuring things ran smoothly during the transition. A very special thank you to our outgoing Board President, Karen Fletcher, who brought out the best in everyone and put in countless hours keeping things afloat. Lisa Ryder, former Board Secretary, graciously agreed to step up to being the next Board President with Rick Rudstrom as Vice-President, Morgan Gates as our Treasurer and the Secretary position remaining open as we recruit new Board members.

Scarlett Ponton de Dutton is continuing to serve as the HR liaison between the Board and Library staff, and John Adler and Andrea Begin are invaluable in the experience and institutional knowledge they bring to the Board.

One of my favourite life expressions is that the best way to predict the future is to be part of creating it…….so consider joining the Board of Trustees and being part of the future of your library. Contact us at egreer.ncl@gmail.com for more information, or come to one of our Board meetings on the last Wednesdays of the month at 7PM at the Library. Better than Pizza delivery! Happy New Year!

Elektra Greer is the Director of the Nederland Community Library.