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EZ STRENGTHENING PUBLIC AND ACADEMIC LIBRARIES GRANT APPLICATION FORM 1. USERS AND NEED Harrisburg is one of the fastest growing areas of Cabarrus County. There was a 41.29% increase in population from April 2000 to July 2009. A majority of the people living in Harrisburg are families, many with children under the age of 18. (According to the 2000 census, 42.9% of the 1,556 households had children under the age of 18). The collection needs of the Harrisburg Library are very general in terms of non - fiction needs for adults and school age children. Both of these collections are in dire need of updating. Of primary concern for adults are books in the following subject areas: health and medical, job search, career, small business, technology information, travel, personal finance and legal resources. The specific needs of children revolve around books needed for school work in the following subject areas: geography (countries, states), history, biography, science and sports. The adult non - fiction collection contains 10,224 books or 25.8% of the total number of books. Universally the average age of the subject areas that need updating is around 2000. It is evident that once the "opening day" collection was complete, those subjects were ignored. The same conclusion can be drawn about the juvenile non - fiction collection. This collection, totaling 6,497 books (or 16.4% of the total books), also has an average age of ten years. Currently many of the non - fiction needs of adult and children at the Harrisburg Library go unmet or cannot be immediately fulfilled. Approximately 25% of all non - fiction books checked out at the Harrisburg Library are filled from other Cabarrus County Library collections. While borrowing books from other libraries in the system is an acceptable alternative to some, often this option is not viable due to time constraints of having the items transported. This has become even more of a problem since February 2010 when the library system experience budget cuts and library hours were cut by 30 %. 2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION On July 5, 2001 the 10,000 square foot Harrisburg Library opened to the public. Due to pressure from the funding bodies, the library opened before the ordered collection was complete; only about one -third of the "opening day" collection was on the shelf. It took several months before the rest of the collection arrived. As a result, the staff developed a mindset that suggested that quantity was more important than quality for the collection. Without a collection development policy to guide them in their purchases and additions of donated materials, items were added to "fill the shelves." Many of the items added over the next eight and a half years were inappropriate for library checkout, both in terms of meeting the needs of the users and in format; paperback easy and juvenile non - fiction books dominated the collection. Deselection of materials was not priority and many books have condition issues. Despite the challenges of the collections, the Harrisburg Library became the highest circulating branch of the Cabarrus County Library system. In July 2009 a new library director for Cabarrus County was hired and implemented a Collection Development Policy in September 2010. In July 2010 anew branch manager was hired for the Harrisburg Library. This branch manager had previously worked as the primary selector of children's materials for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library system. EZ Strengthening Public and Academic Library Collections Grant, 2011 -2012 Applicat o page 2 F -5