Gone are the days of card catalogs and manual due-date stamping. Technological advances have made libraries digitally savvy.

“It’s a very exciting time for libraries if you want to be in it, but if you don’t, you’re going to be left behind,” said Trish Conroy, Douglas County librarian. “It’s very important to keep up with this technology. Libraries should be leaders in this field.
And a leader the local library is, too. It “came a long way” in 1997 when the card catalog was replaced with an automated checkout system. Three years ago, wireless Internet was installed, including on its 10 public computers and for library-goers who bring in personal laptops.

Its Web site – www.douglascountylibrary.org – has a plethora of information, including a catalog search, book request and renewal, account access and book reviews.

When requested books arrive, library staff can also send an e-mail notification. Even the way the library conducts business has evolved; monthly book review magazines, formerly in journal form, are now available online.

Library staff is also navigating the technology track by participating in 23 Things on a Stick, an online training program for Minnesota library personnel. It focuses on blogging, RSS feeds, photosharing, social media, online productivity tools, online games in libraries, podcasts and video, social networking and staying current with changing library trends.

“I can see how that will be extremely beneficial for the library,” Conroy said about 23 Things, adding that ideas it generates will likely be implemented at the library. Books, especially fiction and children’s books, remain a hit with library-goers. “I am a person who says you’ll [always] have books on shelves,” Conroy said. However, books on CD as well as DVD movies are among the library’s most popular selections; those checkouts helped increase circulation from 311,000 items in 2006 to 338,000 last year.

And more than 500 people step through the library’s doors each day, checking out upwards of 2,000 items, some via the self-checkout. “We just don’t have a slow down around here,” Conroy said. Despite that, she says there is much more the library can, and should, do.

Additional features, such as podcasts, would make the library’s Web site more advanced, as would the option of paying late fees online. An automated system notifying library-goers that their interlibrary books are in would reduce staff calling time. Conroy hopes to apply RFID tags to the library’s 90,000 items, which would simplify and speed inventory, and add library card authentication scanners on public computers.

Technology available at larger libraries – e-book readers and downloadable audio books, for example – would be welcomed as well. Although Conroy has embraced the technology changes, it’s been a bit overwhelming trying to keep up and choose the best options for the library. “There’s so much more out there, and we need to be at the forefront of that,” Conroy said.

“Libraries want to be the leaders, keep up with technology and reach our customers.” She’ll learn about more of those technology trends at the Public Library Association’s 12th National Conference March 25-29 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES STILL POPULAR

Think public libraries are as dusty as the books on the bottom shelf? Guess again; libraries are as popular as ever. Here are some interesting facts. 63 percent of U.S. adults have public library cards.

A 2006 poll conducted by the American Library Association found that 92 percent of respondents expect libraries to be needed in the future, despite the increased availability of information via the Internet. At 16,549, there are more public libraries than there are McDonald’s in the U.S. Americans check out an average of more than seven books a year. 99 percent of public libraries provide public Internet access.

Public libraries are the number one point of online access for people without Internet connections at home, school or work. Students make 1.5 billion visits to school library media centers during the school year, 100 million more visits than at movie theaters in 2005.