The Moniteau County Wood Place Library wants to give children in rural areas the same access to literature as their peers who have the advantage of living near community libraries.
The library board met Feb. 15 to discuss increasing area children's access to books through summer school reading programs and digital library access. The library plans to participate in summer reading programs in Jamestown, High Point and Latham, and the board voiced interest in spreading the program to other communities like Clarksburg.
The board also discussed forming committees from various rural communities to research how the county library could better service those areas, such as offering access to the library's online Tumble Books collection.
The board also unanimously accepted an area resident's offer to charitably purchase two early literacy touch-screen computers for a price of about $5,500 to help young children learn to read.
Wood Place Library's in-house fundraisers exceeded its goal, with $1,020 collected from selling Subway giftcards and refurbished computers that were donated by an area resident. The library has sold 10 computer sets at $75 a piece and $270 in subway cards.
The donation included 19 computers, 6 monitors and 18 licenses of the Windows 10 operating system. TechSoup also donated 50 licenses of Microsoft Office Suite 2016. The library's computer lab is now bigger and better than ever, the board agreed.
The board also participated in trustee orientation and ethics standards, led by Director Connie Gerling.
"Handling public funds is a big responsibility, and not everyone realizes that," Gerling said.
At the March meeting, the board will dicuss working effectively together and end-of-the-year director evaluations.
Gerling also said the new library staff members were settling in and performing well, and that the facility's cleaning services had been spectacular.
"It's so great when (people) are dependable," she said.