Havre-Hill County Library puts out community survey

The Havre-Hill County Library is putting out a short community survey they hope will inform their ongoing strategic planning effort for the organization’s future.

Library Manager Rachel Rawn said this is the first time they’ve tried to make a concrete strategic plan and she hopes it will help guide current and future employees on long-term updates, projects and programming the community wants.

Rawn said the survey is only a few questions about how people use the library, what would make them want to use it more and what they think would be best for its future.

One group of people they are looking to specifically hear from are people who don’t use the library at all.

She said they want to know what those community members would like to see at the library that would make them consider making use of it.

“We are working on long-term goals, and we’re hoping to tie it in with the values of the community and the library,” she said.

Rawn said they do have some large projects in mind already, but they don’t want to go into too much detail because they don’t know what their funding will look like.

She said an addition to the building to give it more space would be a great long-term goal, but it’s a little soon to be thinking about something that big.

“That is very pie-in-the-sky at the moment,” she said.

A more immediately achievable change that’s been suggested, Rawn said, is updating the interior of the building which is a bit visually outdated and needs more seating.

She said that is something they’ve wanted to do for a while and they’ve already gotten a lot of feedback that seems to agree, though they haven’t had much of a chance to act on it.

Rawn said their funding through the city and county have been steady, but they’ve been short staffed recently, so they haven’t been able to do much recently outside of keeping up their normal operations.

“We haven’t had time to do much dreaming,” she said.

She said she’s hoping they will have a major hole in their staff closed soon and that this survey helps give them some direction.

She said they want to get as many respondents as they possibly can and they appreciate any feedback.

The survey can be found at https://forms.gle/AwhGbN6p6Po1Yxni7 and will likely be open for around a month, Rawn said.