Keizer is on the road to getting its volunteer-driven library treated as a full public library, opening the way for expansion.
The Keizer City Council by a split vote gave the Keizer Community Library approval to seek state sanction. The vote indicated the majority of city councilors intend to continue helping fund the operation, likely by dipping into lodging taxes.
“We definitely are celebrating,” said BJ Toewe, a retired librarian helping drive the transformation. “I’m guardedly optimistic.”
Toewe as involved in the founding of the library in 1988, which started out using a room at the old Keizer City Hall for its collection of donated children’s materials.
Today the Keizer Community Library operates on a budget of $60,000 with two part-time employees and a raft of volunteers. The library is now housed in the Keizer Cultural Center.
A report going to the Oregon State Library shows robust growth in patronage, with circulation of its items totaling 11,858 and growing to 22,514 last year.
“Our collection has been amassed from countless bags and boxes of books and DVDs that our community members have donated,” Toewe told the council on Tuesday, Feb. 18. “More than in most libraries, this means that the books in our library collection are a direct reflection of what Keizer residents want to read.”
City voters in 2022 turned down a measure that would have added a monthly fee for the library, producing an estimated $400,000 a year. Library advocates said at the time they believed voters objected to the service fee, not support of the library.
Now, a key to state approval giving Keizer a formal public library is that at least half its budget must come from public funding. The city the past two years has used federal relief funds to contribute to that budget, but those no funds won’t continue after the current budget year, which ends in June.
Councilor Lore Christopher urged the council to commit to that funding, indicating she believed most councilors supported tapping into the city’s lodging tax collections. With a third hotel scheduled to open in Keizer, that revenue source will increase. Lodging taxes are paid by guests in hotels and short term rentals, collected by the business operators.
Councilor Juran voted against the library proposal. He said he couldn’t support the plan until he knew what current uses of the lodging tax might be disrupted by shifting money to the library.
Mayor Cathy Clark said that while “I love libraries,” she urged the council first to settle the funding issue. She voted against the proposal when that wasn’t resolved, later asking in a statement regarding the city funding, “Should we start something with no plan to finish it?”
Toewe said in her presentation that the $30,000 from the city now helps the library operate.
“There is no better library bargain that can be found anywhere in the state of Oregon,” she said.
Toewe brings a lifelong passion for libraries to her volunteer efforts for the Keizer library. She worked as a professional librarian for 39 years, including 33 years with the Salem Public Library before retiring as its administrator in 2015. She is a Keizer resident.
“I so believe in the importance of what public libraries offer to the community,” she said in an interview. “We don’t have enough school librarians anymore training children how to verify sources. A lot of internet users don’t try to verify sources. They do a lot of reading and they may not be getting accurate information.”
The next step is for the community library to formally apply to the state for a change in its status. Toewe said she hoped the process would go fast enough that final approval would come when the State Library Board meets in April.
Toewe said such a designation would make the Keizer library eligible for state grants. And it would open the door to Keizer to be accepted into the Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Service. Through that service, users can request materials held by any of the libraries in the system. Eighteen libraries now participate, from Willamina to Amity.
In the report to the state, the Keizer Community Library, which provides its services free, said it has public internet access and six computers for public use.
“The library has a small but growing collection of books in Spanish,” the report said. “Library staffing includes both a paid bilingual library manager who works 24 hours per week and a grant-funded 8-hour-per-week bilingual outreach coordinator, plus a volunteer corps of over 60 people.”
The report said that “children’s programming will continue to be an important focus,” including weekly story times in English and Spanish, craft and science activities and a summer reading program.
MEET THE LIBRARY BOARD
President: Barbara Miner
Vice president: BJ Toewe
Treasurer: Mark Northcutt
Secretary: Gina Pye
Directors: Paula Guiles, Betty Hart, Cindy Hunt, Kiara Ramsay, Mayra Rosales Rodriguez, Libby Seil, Gail Steimle
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