Archive: Around Town

During these tough economic times library card registration is at an all-time high, according to the American Library Association, and USA Weekend magazine calls public libraries with all their free services, a dynamite money saver. Lansing Community Library (LCL) is improving its services to help patrons get even more entertainment and education from your local library.

Year 2008 was busy and momentous for Lansing Library (LCL).  Our faithful desk volunteers staffed the circulation desk week after week, skillfully serving our nearly 2850 library patrons. Behind the scenes were many other volunteers: people processing books and materials, financial bookkeeping, and buildings and grounds maintenance, as well as the library governing bodies (elected Trustees and the Friends of LCL). These dedicated people, many of whom have worked to build the library since its inception almost 10 years ago, continued their varied, time-consuming jobs that are often not seen by library patrons or the public. A conservative estimate puts the number of volunteer hours donated by many Lansing people to LCL at 550 per month.

Over the year, major responsibilities changed hands from the Friends of LCL, who ran the library for 9 years. Now the Trustees have the authority to operate the library. They hired two Lansing residents, professional Library Manager, Susie Gutenberger and part-time clerk, Paula Weaver.

In March LCL earned its provisional New York State Charter and the Trustees were sworn in by Lansing Judge John Howell. In October, LCL was officially voted a member of the Finger Lakes Library System (FLLS). This large organization helps coordinate and strengthen library and information services for 33 libraries in Cayuga, Cortland, Seneca, Tioga and Tompkins Counties.


With the help of FLLS and a major grant, Lansing Library is jumping into the digital era. To enable LCL to become a fully functioning part of the Finger Lakes System, equipment and training assistance was purchased with a generous grant from the local Triad Foundation.  Every library item is being entered into the FLLS computer database.  When completely implemented by the end of February 2009, this digitized system will allow library staff, volunteers, and patrons full computer access to holdings in both LCL and the Finger Lakes System. Each item in the library will have a bar code which will speed check-out and re-shelving of books and other materials. Patrons are beginning to get their new bar-coded library cards, and with these cards patrons will be automatically reminded when books are due. If they have computers at home, patrons can search the 15,000 library materials at LCL and many thousands of materials in the entire FLLS from home. If they don’t have home computers, they can use the public computers at LCL for searches and much more. All with no charge.

The public computers at LCL are in use at least 55 % of the time the library is open. Soon more public computers will be installed to serve our growing number of patrons – 5-10 new people sign up for library cards each week. The library stacks will be rearranged to make more room for library tables and easy chairs right in the stacks, so patrons will have more comfy places to sit and read or do work using LCL’s free wireless Internet connection.


Since LCL’s completely renovated and paid-for building re-opened, Lansing residents have enjoyed a wide range of free public programs that feature local artists, authors and crafts people, local gardening topics, various historical themes, and most recently, wonderful photos of steam locomotives and a display of model trains.  The popular and very important children’s Summer Reading Programs have been conducted every year and enrolled 141 children in ’08. Tuesday morning Story Time for Younger Children has just been resumed with 11 children and 6 adults attending last week. A small grant paid for more Large Print books to build that collection for Lansing people with vision challenges.

Lansing Library is funded only through its small annual tax (now down from 15 cents/$1000 to a rate of 12.6 cents per $1000 of property assessment). This year Tompkins County gave each chartered library $29,870 – money LCL used to hire a temporary, part-time Clerk; this money is not guaranteed each year. Other than these two sources, funding is gained through donations and writing grant proposals – a time-consuming task involving much paper work. Since LCL received its NYS Charter, it is eligible for grants from the State and from the Federal Government for which it could not apply before it was chartered. In the past, many generous local individuals, businesses, foundations, and Town of Lansing helped to build this library into the successful community service it is today. These funds and our new professional staff, plus the thousands of volunteer-donated work hours will keep our Lansing Library healthy and strong in the years to come.

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