Cross Plains Public Library

The Cross Plains Public Library’s mission: to serve the residents of Cross Plains and the surrounding area by providing a secure and dynamic environment for lifelong learning with access to materials for education, information, and recreation.

We house nearly 20,000 volumes and subscribe to the Bibliotheca library of e-books. We have a limited book budget and would like funds to expand our bestsellers, westerns, and Texas collection.

We have a computer network with wireless Internet access and would like to offer computer classes to our patrons. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone skilled in teaching the class in our town of 1000+ residents, so we would have to hire someone from another town or have someone train our staff.

Twenty-five percent of our operating budget is contributed by the city and county—the rest comes from donations and fundraisers. Living in a small town, there are only so many dollars to go around; we need to find new ways to reach more patrons.

For over 30 years we have offered a LAP (Learn About ... Program - for ages 0-5) but both teachers retired and we are looking for someone to teach the classes from November to April of each year. This was a volunteer position, and now it we need to pay someone to as we can't find a volunteer to take it over.

We want to start a coding club for our kids within the next five years.

We will continue to search for grantors who will donate funds to increase our collection.

We recently received a grant from AT&T/PLA to offer computer workshops. There are a limited number of courses available and training materials for instructors to use. These have worked out well so far, but there are other subjects our patrons want to study and we don't have instructor materials - this limits the number of teachers who feel comfortable teaching the class without any guidance. We will continue to offer workshops and look for programs that are free. We will also pursue funding for instructors to enroll in classes that are not free and that will assist them in teaching subjects that our patrons want.

Our new library director will be attending the annual conference (her first) and is excited to find creative and unique ways to expand our audience and draw more patrons from outlying areas.

We are working with Prenda to find a grantor for a coding club.

We continue to ask for a volunteer to continue our LAP program and we are looking for funds to pay for the teacher if needed.

All of these items require money. Last fall our board started viewing webinars about donor retention and getting new donors. We have become more transparent in our finances and have thrown away those "canned" thank-you letters to donors and replaced them with more personal notes. We are publicizing ourselves more to get the word out about the wonderful programs and services we offer.