Riverside Regional Library presents annual report to commissioners

Cape Girardeau County commissioners Thursday received the 2020 annual report from Riverside Regional Library.

Library director Jeff Trinkle told commissioners he and the rest of the library administration were very proud of the fact they were able to remain open once the statewide shutdown ended.

"One thing that we are real proud of is that we opened in some fashion as soon as the shutdown was lifted, and we stayed open," Trinkle said. "We even actually increased our hours, increased services and increased providing for our communities. It's been a strange year, but everybody's had a strange year. We're no different.

"These numbers are going up more and more as we open up later in the evening. We're seeing more traffic, we're seeing more circulation. That was just something we needed to probably do a little bit sooner, but not having any experience with this. Hindsight is 20/20 but I'm slowly going blind, and this was a case of really having to kind of be flexible as you go along."

In addition to being able to stay open, Riverside experienced overall highlights last year.

Riverside began a free summer lunch program in 2020 for families in need.

"We've found families now who are in such need of food that we extended this program," Trinkle said. "It usually has been a summer reading program, because students, when they're out of school, don't always get that lunch."

Riverside received two grants -- a summer reading grant worth $9,637 for an eight-week all-ages summer program and a technology mini-grant worth $17,748 for the library's network improvement project. Riverside also received $28,278.13 worth of state aid in Cape Girardeau County, $9,485.50 in Perry County and $11,141.50, along with $12,014.77 in state equalization aid, in Scott County.

Riverside purchased 15 Sprint 4G portable Wi-Fi hotspots to check out by library cardholders 18 years or older.

Like every business in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected Riverside in a major way. The library experienced decreases in overall library visits, meeting room usage, public computer usage and circulation transactions.

"It was a little shocking putting this one together because of a lot of the negative numbers we saw," Trinkle said. "We're almost down in every category, except for borrowers. Our borrowers went up. Some of that could be attributed to some of the services we created and enhanced online. So that even though we had some limited service, and limited hours, people were able to get in."

In other business Thursday, commissioners:

• Voted to adjust minutes from Monday's meeting, changing the completion date from April 30 to May 30 for the steel pipe addition at County Road 379.
• Approved Homecomer's use of the old Cape Girardeau County Courthouse lawn and bathrooms from July 24 through Aug. 1.
• Approved Emergency Management's request to sell the department's 1987 GMC Step Van mobile command center.