In our recently concluded community survey, 83% of respondents said they used the library at least once in the past year. We also asked “Why haven’t you used any library services during the past year?” and 27% cited “I don’t have time/too busy.” We can assume that this applies to many who only used the library a few times in the past year, too.

“With busier family schedules and growing numbers of senior citizens, there is an increased need for the library to expand what we’re already doing to take library materials and services out to where our patrons are,” said Margaret Conroy, Daniel Boone Regional Library executive director. “It’s our next big initiative.”

Debra Winter is the newest member of the DBRL Board of Trustees. She brings a love of reading, commitment to serving her community and professional financial expertise to the rest of the talent represented on the board. She formerly worked for the Callaway County auditor’s office and is now the purchasing director for Callaway County.

The library is hosting two public forums on Proposition L. The library executive director Margaret Conroy will talk about the need for the library levy and will answer questions.

The current funding level is no longer sufficient to keep pace with the changing needs of the community. The library is serving more people and offering more services than ever before.

Welcome to 2020! As do many of us, I am looking forward to the possibilities that a new year brings. At DBRL, we will be wrapping up our current strategic plan while simultaneously developing our next three-year plan. Thanks to the results of our recent community survey, as well as some internal work, we already have a number of ideas for increasing and improving our services to you.

One major project coming this April will be to ask the voters in Callaway County to consider a modest tax increase in order to sustain and expand services in Callaway.

Thanks to the randomly-selected 1,365 people in Boone and Callaway Counties who took time to answer our questionnaire, we have a better sense of what we’re doing right and where we can improve. The information will also be valuable when we begin drafting our next long-range strategic plan.

We used ETC Institute, an Olathe, Kansas research firm, that does studies for public libraries and municipalities all across the country. Here are some of their findings.

Results from the community survey conducted on behalf of Daniel Boone Regional Library (DBRL) show high satisfaction rates among residents in Boone and Callaway Counties. Survey results show a 96% satisfaction rate for service provided by library staff, 92% of those surveyed were satisfied with the overall quality of public library services and 98% agreed with the statement “I think libraries are important to our community.” The community survey was conducted over the summer and the data analyzed this fall by ETC Institute out of Olathe, Kansas.

Phil Harrison and his family have called Columbia home for over four decades. Phil is retired from the University of Missouri system, where he worked for ten years as assistant to the president. Now he fills his time with volunteer activities, reading and foreign travel. He and his wife have three daughters, one in St. Louis and two in Chicago: a postdoc at Washington University, an actor and a speech pathologist.

If you’re interested in knitting, painting, cooking, sewing or other arts and crafts, take a look at the streaming video classes offered by Creativebug and now available through the Daniel Boone Regional Library website. With your library card, you get unlimited access to more than 1,000 award-winning art and craft video classes for all skill levels taught by recognized design experts and artists.

With the library’s new online registration system, you can reserve library meeting spaces online or register for library events and classes with a few clicks.

This October, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Daniel Boone Regional Library (DBRL). This anniversary marked the start of the regional contract between library districts in Mid-Missouri to provide library services to their residents. Currently, DBRL is made up of two tax-supported library districts: the Callaway County Library District and the Columbia and Boone County Library District (covering all of Boone County except Centralia, which has its own library district).

The regional system concept allows libraries to work together under a formal, legal contract as a single entity. When you hear or read “Daniel Boone Regional Library,” you know that we are operating on behalf of all of our members.

As a 60th anniversary project, we’ve been adding more historical images of library services, staff and patrons into the online Community History Archive.

We have also created new galleries of photos related to specific subjects, like the construction of the first 100 W. Broadway building or the “La Colomba” sculpture that sits outside the Columbia Public Library. Take a look!