Member Spotlight: Powell River Public Library
In our Member Spotlight series, we shine a light on our BC Libraries Co-op members and partners, exploring how they use our services and the unique challenges and successes they experience.
Powell River Public Library
Melani Williams, Assistant Chief Librarian at Powell River Public Library (PRPL), answers our questions on their member experience, new projects and the library’s assistive devices program which offers free 3D printed assistive devices for patrons.
What challenges have the services offered by BC Libraries Co-op helped your library with?
MW: Assisting us with formatting our new Community Page to include images, accessing Matomo analytics, connecting with vendors. We do attend Co-op training sessions and connect directly with other libraries when we want to follow up on their good ideas!
What accessibility challenges have the services helped you with?
MW: The Support team ‘turned on’ our Accessibility features so they are easily accessible from our main page on our website.
What learnings of the past months would you like to share with other member libraries?
MW: We’ve really appreciated the support from the Co-op (we have a lot of questions), and we also really appreciate all of the other library people we have connected with (at BCLA and elsewhere) or spoken to about accessibility, navigating intellectual freedom challenges, volunteerism, inclusive programming, and safe spaces.
Tami [Tami Setala is BCLC’s Licensing & Business Development Manager] and the Support Team have been amazing, answering questions and providing advice, tech support, and a lot of patience!
What events or projects are you most excited about in the coming months?
Improving our website, reviewing our ILS and room booking software, continuing to improve wayfinding and accessibility in our library spaces.
We are hoping to reorganize our web content to make the website more intuitive and easier to navigate. We will declutter old pages or make sure they are connected to parent pages. We will add more graphics/images, and ideally add a book carousel on our main page. We are currently updating signage and once our collections project is complete (we are expanding our children’s collection footprint), we would like to add some fun wayfinding options. We are also looking at creating a scavenger hunt to help customers learn more about our collections and spaces.
Can you tell us more about your assistive devices available at the library?
Karen Wootten, Accessibility Coordinator at PRPL: We started this program for National AccessAbility Week (May 25 -31). It was well-received in the community. Patrons were excited to create devices that would address their specific needs to make their daily lives easier. We also had local care homes reach out for devices for their residents, and they were pleased with the results. After hearing about the program, a local resident received a Makers Making Change Grant from the Neil Squire Society and is now also 3D printing assistive devices here in Powell River. She will be hosting a workshop at the Library to talk about the process in September. We are excited that new technology is being used to help people live healthy, independent lives!
Any local businesses or other co-ops you partner with and would like to highlight for their work in the community?
We really love working with LIFT Community Services and Inclusion Powell River.