Libraries are a vital resource for communities not only on the North Coast, but across the country, with two-thirds of Americans living just over two miles away from a public library.
While those numbers are undoubtedly different in our rural area, there are eleven branches across Humboldt county and two in Del Norte.
Most libraries receive funding from city and county taxes.
However, grants from federal, state and local agencies, and private groups like the Humboldt Library Foundation, are a major piece of the puzzle.
“We received $101,000 from the Humboldt Library Foundation for books for electronic resources, for the mangle language database, so people can learn all sorts of languages,” director of library services Chris Cooper said. “They can access a wide range of materials. Humboldt County readers have really broad interests, so we’re going to be updating all of our collections, including children’s graphic novel collection, our travel books. So, we’ll have a lot of those things, resources as well as new children’s books.
Michael Logan walked me through one of the areas of the library that will be transformed into a graphic narratives room as a part of this new wave of grant money.
“This section is going to be turned into essentially a new format for us, which is we’re breaking out the graphic novels and graphic narratives and putting them here in this section so they’ll all be collected together,” manager of acquisitions and technical services Michael Logan said. “We also got a massive grant from the Humboldt Library Foundation to purchase new materials. So that when we unveil this new section, it’ll be chock full of brand new, brand new, you know, graphic, not just graphic novels, but graphic nonfiction, manga, superheroes, comics, you know, the whole the whole range of graphic narrative.”
If you are interested in supporting your local library, there are many ways to get involved.
“We have many opportunities to volunteer, whether it be helping with our book sales and helping as docents in our Humboldt history room upstairs, the Humboldt room,” Cooper said. “If they want to get involved in donor development, they can work closely with the foundation. The foundation has a buy a book campaign where for every $25 donated, the library will purchase a free book. There’s also planned giving opportunities so you can donate. Real estate, insurance policies, all kinds of things.
