These days, it seems everyone is having to do more with less.

The staff of the Hall County Library System is no different, making do with less money, time and staff, yet greater demand for services.

Adrian Mixson, Hall County Library System Director, wrote in the library’s August newsletter that library membership grew by 5.5 percent. The system has 97,992 registered patrons as of May 2012.

To keep up with the increased workload the library staff has to work with what they’ve got.

“I’ve seen that we’ve had to become very adaptive. We’ve had to become very resourceful with our space, with our resources, with our money and try to be positive,” Gail Hogan, library assistant, said.

In the last few years, the library system has also been faced with budget cuts that eliminated 20 part-time jobs and led to the closing two branches, reduced operating hours, furlough days and staff turnover.

The library staff now must open and operate a new branch in North Hall with existing staff.

In spite of these challenges, staff members share a passion for their work because they understand the library’s value to the community.

“The library is so important to society in general,” said Al List, North Hall Technology Center branch manager. “It’s not just people coming to get a movie or book for their own entertainment. We contribute so much to society in terms of educations, people having access to technology. There is just so much more to it and a lot of people don’t get it.”

He said that though some people disagree with the construction of the new branch, it is needed and will benefit a North Hall area that has been underserved.

He and the other two systems staff members have been working diligently for the last two months to prepare the 80 new Apple computers and other technology systems that will be showcased in the center. They also maintain the computers at the other four branches. The new computers were paid for with special purpose local option sales tax revenue.

“We’re really cutting-edge technology on a shoestring budget,” List said.

Linh Uonh, Librarian I Technical Services at the Gainesville branch, “does everything that needs to be done before books get shelved.”

She and two others are responsible for cataloging books, repairing broken spines and scratched DVD and music CDs. Her department is very detail-oriented; one wrong key stroke and a book could easily be lost in the stacks.

She said the smaller staff of three will work for now because the book budget doesn’t allow for new books, giving them time to work on other projects they’ve had to put off. Those projects include sorting through the stacks of books at the closed libraries to circulate back into the system.

In addition to the library’s own stacks of thousands of books, the Gainesville branch takes in, sorts and distributes an additional 100,000 books a year through the PINES system. Patrons can order books from any PINES library in the state and have it delivered to their local library.

Couriers are responsible for sorting and delivering the books to and from libraries in the system. There are two couriers in the system splitting a part-time job, working four-hour shifts.

Once the books are delivered they have to pass through circulation.

Every morning, the four members of the Gainesville branch circulation staff get to work checking in books from the book drops, collecting books that have been placed on hold by patrons, sorting through the PINES and courier deliveries, checking books in and out, helping with library cards and collecting fines from patrons and a collection agency.

They also track down missing items, take all the incoming calls and emails and help with voter registration.
“I think the public doesn’t know about the volume of items. It’s not just the one book. It’s that multiplied by 100 or 200,” Veronica Gomez, Systems circulation manager, said.

Each library in the system is different. Some don’t have the same departments as the Gainesville branch, so everyone does a little bit of everything.

“You’re asked to do greater amounts, have a heavier workload but yet people do it and you’re expected to provide the same level of service. It makes it difficult sometimes,” said Emily McConnell, circulation manager for the headquarters branch.

She said the library staff’s morale is fairly low, with many of her co-workers discouraged by the comments people make about the library.

“We don’t want to be closed on Saturdays and we don’t want to be closed two days a week,” McConnell said. “We prefer if we could go back to the seven days a week and employ 20 more people. That is what we would chose to do but right now it’s just not a reality.”

Gail Hogan, library assistant in charge of outreach, said that it has been hard on her and her co-workers, but they try to keep in mind that the struggles are likely temporary.

“I try to be positive both with my co-workers and when I’m out with the public, but it’s hard sometimes,” Hogan said. “Especially when we have the public not understanding and demanding things that we can’t give them. We’d love to but we can’t. That hurts sometimes.”

Hogan has worked in the Gainesville building for 22 years. She visits schools and day cares to get children interested in reading, a job she considers her calling.

“I’ve been able to go out and reach so many more children because of this job, children that might not have come through the doors of the library,” Hogan said. “ I let them know that there are friendly faces here. There are people that care about them.”

Hogan said she and her co-workers have to look for the silver lining in the library’s situation, though they have not received raises in four and five years, they are working harder with fewer people and their patrons are upset about changes in operating hours.

Hogan said it’s up to the staff to find something good about the situation to hold onto.

“So morale can be down but it’s up to us to straighten ourselves out and say, ‘look, we’re going to open the doors today and everyone that comes through those doors deserves the same treatment — a smile, to know they are welcome here,’” Hogan said.