The Enumclaw library has a great history spanning from the 1920s when the Parent-Teachers Association, the Pre-School Circle and other organizations sponsored the collection of books and funds to start a library, and when Mary Fell Stevenson Yerxa willed her home for a library, to the 1950s when a building was built for a new library, then to the 1990s when another new library opened. This is a great history indeed. However, I think Enumclaw’s library can face a new path now that could lead to a greater selection of books for the people of Enumclaw and a greater amount of people coming into the library to check out books. The Enumclaw library should become part of the King County Library System.
Statistics show that 5,167 people with the ZIP code 98022 are active King County Library System patrons including my family and me. That is around half the population considering that the population in 2010 was 10,669. With a KCLS library here it would be easier for those library patrons to just go into town than to travel over to a King County library in Muckleshoot, Auburn or Black Diamond.
The King County Library System has a wide selection of items. The system circulates over 19 million items per year. That is a whopping average of over 387,755 items per library considering that in the whole system there are 48 libraries (plus one traveling library.) That’s more than twice the amount the Enumclaw library circulates. The King County Library System has 4.1 million items to offer as opposed to the 50,000 that the Enumclaw Library offers. And yet in addition to that, KCLS offers over 100 databases.
Another reason why the Enumclaw library should become part of the King County Library System is because it is a library system that is huge and has a great budget. Today the King County Library System has a staff of 1,137 people and the 2010 revenue budget was $89 million (excluding the one traveling library, that would be an average of $1.85 million per library.) Becoming part of the King County Library System could provide more jobs, give our library a great budget to upgrade, (including new technology), get more books, etc.
As you can see, becoming part of the King County Library System could be a huge benefit to the town and to the community. Becoming part this system could help the library to serve the community even more. This could become a big milestone in the history of our town and a great advancement within the community.
Matthew Gere
Enumclaw
