A Telehealth Room at the Storm Lake Public Library

My dream of a Telehealth Room at our library began when I read an article on the Pottsboro Area Library’s Telehealth Space in Texas in the May 2021 issue of American Libraries. I greatly admired the concept of telemedicine at a public library. That was during the pandemic, when our library was closed to the public but preparing to re-open at 50% capacity. Our patrons were eager to browse the shelves again. The staff were also tired because we had books everywhere due to a leaking roof that damaged a portion of the nonfiction area. Among all the reshelving, I stared at the Pottsboro Area Library photo and wondered how we could make it happen in Iowa. Northwest Iowa’s Storm Lake Public Library serves 11,000 residents of a small city surrounded by miles of farmland. Two meatpacking plants are the major employers of an ethnically diverse group of residents who collectively speak over thirty different languages. Our library maintains a collection that has grown to over 48,000 materials since it began 1906. I have been with the library for over twenty years, after starting as the Children’s Librarian until I became the Library Director. In the summer of 2021, our City Management decided to pursue a state-funded Community Block Development Grant to mitigate COVID and realized the library could play an important role in that effort. Mindful of approaching grant submission deadlines, they hired a grant writer to solicit bids from architectural firms for the project. It took two ...
Source: The Cornflower - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Blog telehealth Source Type: news