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Scranton Library Sees Big Uptick in Visitors as Hours, Offerings Expand

Following months of incremental and cautious increases in their hours, with a corresponding steady increase in visitors, the E.C. Scranton Library experienced a surge in interest and patronage last month as new hires, increased hours, and some eclectic new opportunities arrive just in time for summer.

Scranton Director Sunnie Scarpa said June saw some eye-popping numbers, with almost 80 new library card sign-ups and more than triple the number of residents perusing the new building compared to the previous month, hitting around 6,000 visits.

“Our staff have all been wanting to see more people,” Scarpa said. “It’s a really good feeling actually. We’re thrilled.”

With Saturday hours from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and three weekday evenings where the library is open until 8 p.m., Scarpa said she only expects the demand to grow, coinciding with a slow but steady return to in-person programming and some new, slightly less traditional opportunities, from a rented pizza stove to potential rowdy board-game nights.

“It feels like going forward to something fresh and new,” Scarpa said. “[Though] to our patrons, it probably feels like going back to something they missed.”

The library is continuing to require mask wearing even as other places have dropped mandates, as the number of children who use the building and are too young to be vaccinated makes that a necessity.

In the spring, negotiations about the library budget grew somewhat strained, as the costs around the brand-new building, new staffing requirements due to the virus, and pension obligations pushed Scranton to ask for about a 15 percent increase over 2020-’21, when the building was open sporadically due to the pandemic.

With a special appropriation to add some part-time custodians and the approval of the budget referendum, Scarpa said she and her staff moved “lightning fast” in getting ready for this month, and as a result the library has not experienced any strain from the influx of patrons and was able to increase their hours ahead of schedule.

With many other libraries around the state not able to return to anything like a regular schedule, Scarpa said she was grateful and proud that Madison residents have supported the library, and that everything has fallen into place so far.

While a lot of things are changing on the back end, with lessons and investments from the pandemic allowing more streamlined scheduling and other “invisible” efficiencies, Scarpa added that a lot of people who are showing up come to the library for the same old services—research, reading a newspaper (Scranton just re-upped its subscriptions), and browsing books.

In the long term, though, libraries around the state aren’t just falling back into the old normal, according to Scarpa, and haven’t been content with just “doing things the way we always did.”

What that change in mindset looks like might vary widely from library to library, but in Madison so far, it looks like an increase in the Library of Things—objects that don’t quite fit a traditional idea of a library offering, but Scranton sees as a community resource.

These objects include the aforementioned portable pizza stove, a catalog of garden seeds, a projector for outdoor movie nights, and an expanded selection of lawn games (the most popular items so far, according to Scarpa) along with a nascent board game library that can be used in the sound-resistant teen room.

It also looks like bringing people back into the building, with in-person programs just starting up (Scranton has already hosted in-person video game nights for teens and a dance class for very young residents called “Toddler Tango”). Scarpa said the library will be allowing private room reservations starting on Monday, July 26 for free for non-profits or community organizations.

People are already “clamoring” for those spaces, and Scarpa posited that this especially is a sign that Madison is ready and eager to connect again with their community through clubs, games, and other interests—something that “we all benefit from,” she promised.

For more information on the E.C Scranton Library, visit www.scrantonlibrary.org.