MANSFIELD — The Mansfield/Richland County Public Library is continuing to change with the times, but that doesn’t mean it has forgotten its roots.
Recently the library has been undertaking new projects for community use: biking, hot spots, Amazon Kindles and blood pressure cuffs.
“We’ve got all these new things people don’t always think about,” said Chris May, director of the library. “But it’s nice to remind people we also do the traditional things to help students, job seekers and lifelong learners.”
May said students using the library can use data bases that elementary, high school and colleges use.
“We have things for all ages to use for their projects, their studies. We are a partner of OhioLink, which colleges use to move resources back and forth,” May said. “We can borrow items that way and borrow from other public libraries.
“We offer the traditional print resources as well as the online resources.”
May said with a library card, holders have access to resources on their website.
“Even people who are looking to work on their car,” May said. “We have all the manuals downstairs, but we also have (online resources) where you can look up wiring diagrams and recalls and figure out to do that on your own.
“There are a lot of different things we support,” he continued. “While we are doing some of those new things we are also doing the same, traditional things: print collections, one-on-one assistance, online assistants and I think it’s a really good thing.”
May said keeping with old forms is equally as important as staying current with new forms of media.
“I think it’s extremely important,” he said. “We try to do our best to give them what they want. People learn in different ways. Doing the bike program, for instance — providing health and wellness. We offer that information through our databases as well, so that partnership made sense for us, and it was a new way to engage with our community, too.
“A lot of our users know what to expect from the library and others are surprised by what they find once they start digging in. So using Kindles, hotspots and blood pressure cuffs are different ways to engage with the community.”
