West DSM News

The Windsor Heights City Council received an annual update on the Des Moines Public Library by Director Sue Woody, and discussed a new agreement between the library and the city during the council's March 20 meeting.

In addition to an update on library operations, Woody talked the patronage of Windsor Heights residents and their usage of the facilities before introducing other representatives from the library departments to tell the council about how their partnership over the last three years has affected the library and the Windsor Heights community.

"Thank you all so much for the last three years that we have been able, it's been a real privilege for us to be able to offer our library services to the residents of Windsor Heights," Woody said. "So, this is just our time to thank you for that, and I brought a couple special ladies with me, librarians, who would like to just kind of explain how your residents have been taking advantage of some of the services that we offer at the library."

The librarians shared some data with the council, noting that Windsor Heights users checked out 4,958 different items a total of 8,951 times in 2022. That included 4,557 audiobooks, 3,490 e-books and 906 Magazines. The library registered 94 new users from Windsor Heights last year, bringing its total number to 327 active users, not counting those with active cards that haven’t checked anything out in a year, as 978 Windsor Heights residents, about 20% of the total population, have a Des Moines Library card. While the library is very happy with the activity of those who do have a library card, they want to expand and bring in even more residents into the library systems and all the services they provide, the staff said.

In the last six months of 2022, more than 7,000 physical items were checked out from the library, over half of which were children’s materials, with the majority coming from the Franklin Ave location. The library does its best to cater to families and children, as they represent most of its patronage. The library offers "family story time" events, movie nights, read-alongs and charitable donations of food and books to schools and young children. The library actually curates its own collection entirely itself, responding to patrons’ request and usage levels. They purchase new books upon release and figure the number of copies based on usage and wait time for any popular titles. The council expressed its satisfaction and voted to continue the partnership.