Gladwin County District Library

Gladwin County District Library

Gladwin County District Library resides in the gateway to northern Michigan, also known as the county that serves as “Michigan’s backyard”.  With an abundance of wildlife, trails, sports, and outdoor recreation, we are a rural county of 25,500 residents in a 516 Square mile area. The Gladwin County District Library serves as a key element, not only as a traditional library, but also as a premier programming venue, community meeting space, educational institution, and much more. The library has currently has two locations. One location, in Gladwin, combines the library facility with a community ice arena, a physical gym, and a martial arts studio. The other location, in Beaverton, is located in a former school that maintains many of the above, along with a coffee shop, preschool, and health rehabilitation institute.    Library funding is primarily based on property taxes, state aid via the Library of Michigan, and penal fines. This financial foundation is something of a challenge in a rural community with a poverty status above the national average, requiring the library to especially strive to maintain responsible spending.

However, often libraries cannot obtain funding or grants that are specific to building improvements and wide programming funding. Further, the Covid pandemic had a vast impact on all of the above funding and further made their mission more challenging. On top of this, Gladwin County had a disastrous episode of heavy rains and flawed dams that led to a devastating flood that destroyed 3 major lakes and is still in the recovery stage at this time. There is no question that this has also had an impact on property taxes and economic revenue for the entire county.   

The Community Center Grant will help secure and replace some major infrastructure elements they would never have been able to achieve via conventional ways. Roofing, plumbing, heating, cooling, ADA compliance, new doors, and much more will continue to provide the structural elements to keep a viable community center for the entire county and its residents.  In addition, it will also provide programming and elements that are not only desired but elementary in providing resources to the community. Libraries are not just books anymore. They are places of creative construction and intellectual curiosity. The library will now be able to supply broadband and internal computer services that would not be possible without.  They plan to further broaden offerings with what is now known as the “Library of Things”.  While books remain a very popular medium that they offer, they find that patrons desire more things that may be hard to obtain personally. For example, the library will now be able to supply outdoor recreation equipment and items for checkout such as kayaks, snowshoes, fishing equipment, tools, educational items such as telescopes, or even metal detectors.