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 ay is a rather slow month at the Community Library, with just shy of 9,000 visitors on average, compared to March or August, our busiest months, which see 14 or 15 thousand people walking through our doors.The ski season is over and many locals head to warmer or more exotic climes (I am writing this on the 4th of May from Barfleur, Normandy, France). Many May adventures and sojourns are researched in the Library's excellent collection of travel books, a collection assiduously culled and updated by Collection Development Manager Cathy Butterfield. (You can write to Cathy if you want to find out more about the collection specifically or generally.)
 n my way across the pond I stopped in Chicago (city of the American Library Association) for a few days and managed to visit a few libraries (thanks, Van!). Of special interest was the Newberry Library, another privately funded public library, as is the Community Library. The Newberry, founded in 1877 with a $165,000 bequest, is not a general lending library, but rather a research and reference institution (open to the public) that focuses on Western Europe and the Americas and contains more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and 500,000 historic maps (it has a FABULOUS book store and rents out its rooms for cocktail parties and weddings!).
pen 36 hours a week (compared to the Community Library Association's 53 hours), it receives 200 visitors each week (over 400 patrons on average per DAY at the CLA), and has an excellent schedule of seminars and public programs. They also have exhibitions but I found those to be a bit ho-hum in comparison to their other offerings and especially in light of the other Chicago offerings along similar lines. The Newberry is renowned for its genealogical material and a full half of the patrons visit with the purpose of using those resources.
 s to their finances, with a budget of $7.5 million compared to the CLA's $1.4M, I must respectfully point out that although we have less than 1/10th the amount of books and 1/100th
the amount of manuscript pages and historic maps, and a small (but growing, thanks to Reference Librarian Buffy McDonald) genealogical section, we do offer the daily patron quite a bit more bang for the proverbial (and otherwise) buck!
 he next time you are in Chicago, I highly recommend a visit to the Newberry (or one of Chicago's 40 public libraries, including the main library downtown, the Harold Washington Library Center, which you can tour right now).
Sincerely,
Colleen Daly
Executive Director
cdaly@thecommunitylibrary.org
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