Boone County Public Library earns state’s highest library award! | Features

BOONE COUNTY, KY (FOX19) - Boone County Public Library has been awarded an Exemplary Certificate by the Kentucky Public Library Association Standards Committee for participation in the 2011 round of the 2011-2012 Kentucky Public Library Standards.

     Kentucky's public library systems were rated in sev­en cat­egories: man­age­ment, human resources, fa­cilities, ser­vices, technology, public relations, and col­lections. Boone County Public Library is one of three Kentucky Public Libraries to ever receive the Exemplary Level of the KPLA Standards.  The other two are Kenton County Public Library and McCracken County Public Library. The Exemplary Level is the highest ranking a Kentucky public library system can receive.    

     “We always strive to be the best we can be,” said Library Director Greta Southard, “It’s nice to have our efforts validated by the Kentucky Public Library Association. We’ve constantly been at the forefront of providing new programs and services to our community while maximizing our resources. We spend dollars on new materials and services that are not only being used by our community but our useful to our customers.”

     The library offers an expansive range of new services. One of these is Freegal, A database of free and legal dowloadable music.  Cardholders can download three free songs a week with the Library’s subscription and they get to keep the songs. In December alone, 793 customers downloaded 4,562 songs from Freegal.

     “We felt we could better serve our customers by spending the money on this subscription where they can choose the songs they want instead of on CDS that get damaged and lost and have a short shelf-life,” said Southard.

       “We also look for ways to work smarter by collaborating with local agencies and libraries. We work closely with Success by Six Boone County and the Boone County Community Early Childhood Council to help children in our community be ready to read when they start school.”

     For the past eight years, Boone County Public Library has been the venue for the Early Childhood Fair which provides developmental screenings and information for families with preschoolers. The Library’s Early Literacy team has set the model for other libraries across the state and members of this team are in high demand as trainers for similar programs throughout Kentucky    

     “We know that when we combine our resources with our partners we can achieve much more than we could alone,” said Southard.

     Some partnerships initiated by Boone County Public Library are: Kentucky Libraries Unbound, a collaborative where partners pool resources to purchase digital books, movies, music and audiobooks; askwhyky.com, an online question and answer service; Northern Kentucky One Book One Community, a community-wide reading program; and Show Us Your Card, an initiative that offers discounts for cardholders at local businesses.