From the Director -- April 2018

April 8 - 14 is National Library Week, a time to celebrate and highlight the changing role of libraries in communities across the country and the Summit Library specifically. National Library Week 2018 will mark the 60th anniversary of the first event, sponsored in 1958. Interestingly, at that time research showed that Americans were spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments. Sound familiar? Today we often hear that people are reading less or using libraries less because they are using the Internet, reading ebooks and streaming movies. And yet our annual report shows that more than 205,000 people used the Summit Library in 2017; 19,997 people attended the over 1,000 library and community sponsored programs; 108,000 computer and wireless sessions were logged; and more than 300,000 items, including electronic items, were checked out of the library.