The Liberty Lake Municipal Library has its New Year's resolution in mind. In fact, the library has its next 10 in mind with the launch of its long-range planning survey. The survey will run throughout the entirety of January and all Liberty Lake residents are encouraged to answer the six-question survey. 

"We hope that this survey will start our community thinking about the possibilities beyond the traditional view of what a library does," Director of Library Services Pamela Mogen said. "We hope for feedback on some of our ideas about the future and to encourage the Liberty Lake community to bring their ideas into the discussion. Let's start talking about the future, thinking beyond merely aisles of books." 

The brief survey asks basic information, such as how frequently residents visit the library and for what purpose. One question gauges the desirability of future services or improvements the library could offer, like added Sunday hours and new educational programs.

"We wanted some basic information about current library use and combined it with thought-provoking requests for feedback in some key possibilities for future library services," Mogen said.

Mogen said the January questionnaire will be followed with more short surveys throughout 2015 and possibly a longer, more detailed one. These surveys are aimed at improving the library and better calibrating its services for the community's needs in the coming decade. 

"This is the purpose of these surveys and other methods we may employ during 2015: to develop the vision of what the Liberty Lake community wants and needs the library to be in the next five, 10, 20 years and how that vision might be implemented," Mogen said. "We will be asking for volunteers to form a study group to meet in the spring and the fall to help us prioritize and explore the responses we gather."

Although it may be inconvenient, Mogen implores everyone to take the few minutes to fill out the short survey sometime during the month.

"Technology has forever changed the nature and possibilities of the thing we have been calling ‘the library' for hundreds of years," Mogen said. "These great changes impact how we plan for the future in terms of resources we purchase, programs we facilitate, design and allocation of space to accommodate those programs and resources, staff we hire and more. The future is coming quickly and we need to know how you want us to proceed."

Residents can access the survey online at www.surveymonkey.com/s/3R82FMT. Paper copies are also available at the library. 

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