IDAHO GOES DOWN The Idaho Falls Public Library serves as an unofficial community hub, hosting events ranging from art classes to dungeons and dragons, despite the fact that you may only think of libraries as places with rows of books.
The three floors of the Idaho Falls Library offer ample space for a variety of activities. A lot of its programs focus on topics like helping kids learn to read, and the library staff says they want their programs to be as diverse as possible.
We have a room where we currently have our meetings and where we conduct art activities. We provide financial education. Here, we play D&D. Homeschool groups have existed. According to Beth Swenson, one of the assistant directors for the library who oversees community involvement, “we had one homeschool group that was putting together a play and so they needed a space to practice.”
The library itself runs and plans a lot of its programming, but it also welcomes various organizations to come in and conduct events or offer lessons. The library has hosted classes, including one on financial literacy, conducted by organizations like Trio and the University of Idaho, but anybody can reserve a spot. Swenson even mentioned a wedding that took place there once.
That’s not to suggest that the library hasn’t prioritized books and reading.
We encourage reading at home, but of course we have the books. We offer early literacy kits available for families to practice at home as part of our efforts to promote early literacy. Kodables, which teaches children to read independently, is what we’re receiving. According to Swenson, they are significant in the field of education.
Swenson emphasized story time as one of the initiatives designed to help kids improve their reading abilities.
Storytime, in my opinion, is crucial since it teaches children more than just patience. They must learn to remain motionless while paying attention to the speaker. But spending time with their own peers and learning how to engage with them is also quite beneficial for kids. According to Swenson, story time is fantastic since it exposes them to a wide variety of books outside of Dr. Seuss and other classics.
According to Swenson, the Idaho Falls Library still checks out millions of physical books annually, even if the internet seems to be taking over everything else. For customers who would rather read on their phone or tablet, it offers a vast collection of e-books via the Libby app, but Swenson asserts that conventional books have a unique quality.
Many of our physical books are still being checked out. It is actually better for children to read physical books. According to Swenson, there’s just something about print on paper that appeals to their brains more than technological content.
Regarding structural modifications, Swenson took pride in the library’s drive-thru, which makes it simple for patrons to retrieve their book holds and head back to their cars, thereby increasing accessibility.
As a mother, I am happy when I don’t have to get my kids out of their car seats as much. Therefore, having the drive-thru is fantastic, even though it required a significant amount of time and money, Swenson said.
The library is constantly adding new programs to its list of events, but Swenson was unable to offer any concrete ideas for future structural alterations. However, due to financial constraints, particularly as grants have been reduced, several of the new initiatives that staff had hoped to add have to be delayed or eliminated.
We are impacted by the fact that we are receiving less money. I believe I submitted a grant application for 50 new computers so that we could educate children how to code. Even now, I have seniors who say, “I don’t understand how to use a mouse,” so I could educate them how to use the internet. But regrettably, we didn’t because of the federal government’s and the state governments’ current situations. “Now we don’t have any new computers, even though we were in line to receive that grant,” Swenson added. The whole “Let’s get corporate and private funding” thing makes sense to me. However, that doesn’t always work. Furthermore, it is completely ineffective for libraries.
