Alan Michaels asks Alex Stillman, Kimberley White, Edith Rosen, Chase Marcum, Dana Quillman, Humnath Panta…

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New Library

Would you support the building -or at least setting aside a piece of land- for a new and larger library in Arcata.

— Alan Michaels

Responses

Alex Stillman

The Arcata board is very interested in finding a new landing place for the library. Might be the ground floor of a new building in the gateway project area or another site altogether. The library has grown and deserves a large facility. I do support library growth.

Edith Rosen

Hi there, Alan. It seems as though you may enjoy reading and listening books as much as I do! Thank you for your question.

As our community grows, so do our needs.  I am in support of finding a new, larger space for our Arcata Library that is easily accessible and centrally located.

Kimberley White

Thank you Alan for asking this very important question. Public libraries are absolutely essential and I would support a new and larger library for Arcata. The City has land and as you know at the beginning of the pandemic there were significant cuts to our libraries. In response to cuts made due to the pandemic, on July 2, 2020, legislation was introduced called the “Library Stabilization Fund”. The Library Stabilization Fund allowed public libraries to maintain services. More recently, President Biden signed a reconciled budget on March 11 for Fiscal Year 2022 (which began on October 1, 2021) and on March 15 he signed the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

American Library Association President Patty Wong feeling disheartened said, “With inflation rising above seven percent, the of level funding is not enough for libraries to maintain current programming and facilities, let alone meet the ever-increasing demand for library services”.  I believe, much like museums, nature centers, zoos, and historical societies it would behoove Arcata to look into supplemental alternative funding opportunities. As a City, we should explore private donations, endowments, corporate grants, foundation grants, and government grants.

We really have a lot of untapped resources at Cal Poly Humboldt.  We have a wealth of local authors from our university as well as in the community.  Our library can get creative and include local book author readings, genealogy readings, memberships, contributions, sponsorships, name plates in books for a minimal donation, wall of fame (with bricks or tiles with names or businesses for major annual donors) to name a few.  We could engage the Arcata community in annual library drives. We can have a lot of fun while raising money for our library and capitalize on our thriving student population and have live musicevents, races and “Fun Runs”(Word on the Street, “Book It”, etc.).Libraries arenow having in house foodie festivities, wine tastings, coffee houses, eateries and other beverage cafes also as funding sources. The list goes on depending how creative we want to get.  Finally, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) can also be an additional funding source.

I definitely support a new and larger library for Arcata and as a first step will personally start with an annual donation and challenge others to do the same.