I first entered the Scarborough Public Library in the late 1990’s when I decided to travel to Maine from my home in New York to attend the annual meeting of my condominium association. I had recently purchased a condominium in Scarborough and was looking forward to living there. I had spent my teen years in Portland, where my father was a newspaper editor at the Portland Press Herald. Scarborough and Higgins Beach were no strangers to me. I was very impressed with the less than ten-year-old library. It was roomy, the staff was personable, capable, very helpful, and the meeting room was large enough to hold a good-sized audience. I felt fortunate to be moving to a town that had become a much busier place than what I remembered.
I moved to Scarborough with my husband in 2002. My relationship with the Friends of Scarborough Library led to a position on the Library Board of Trustees. From this perspective, and as a regular borrower, I was able to see, first-hand, the increase in usage of the library. It became difficult to maneuver around the tables, desks and chairs. In 2010, Library users checked out over 169,000 items. In 2019 these numbers increased to nearly 186,000. Additional computers were moved into place; book storage was rearranged; the children’s area was redesigned to make more room for afterschool activity and programming. I followed the Annual Appeal carefully and made my annual gift to help offset the growing operating budget.
It’s been 20 years since my introduction to that vibrant “new” library. Scarborough is one of the fastest growing communities in Maine. Patron numbers have increased as the Town grew from 17,000 residents in 2000 to more than 22,000 today.
Our library has responded to the growing community’s need for expanded collections. It is with the help of titles in new formats that the collection has grown from 69,000 items in my first year as a borrower to over 104,000 now. Audio and video tapes have given way to CDs and DVDs, and then online resources.
In 2002, 577 interlibrary loan requests were processed by mail. Last year, via courier, the Library shipped and received 19,369 interlibrary loaned items from the back room, the result of our access to the Minerva shared catalog.
Clearly, we have limited floor space. It’s time that our community library is able to serve and support the vastly larger community with appropriate space for our families and our community to gather, be informed, and be entertained.
There is hardly room for the library staff anymore, yet there are not a lot more staff members. I notice the Program Development person and the Systems Librarian have made a storage room into a shared office. The (pre-COVID) movie programs alerted the public to come early, because there was limited seating. During COVID, program attendance has been restricted to promote distance between seats.
Scarborough’s Library, built in 1989, has 12,880 square feet. It is less than one-third of the size per capita as the average of 18 Maine libraries including Cape Elizabeth, Yarmouth, and Freeport.
I look forward to continuing my service on the Board of Trustees as we share our plans for a library expansion that will meet the needs of the community now and for years into the future.
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