NEWS

The Alicia Ashman branch library on Madison's west side has an exciting collection of graphic novels and anime, genres that have taken off in popularity during the past decade. It's part of a multi-library grant from the Madison Community Foundation.

"The grant helped us buy a lot of small-press items and reprints of things that have been out of print for a while," says Barbara Lundt, a reference librarian at Alicia Ashman. She's especially thrilled about the Badger superhero stories written by former Isthmus contributor Mike Baron and set in Madison.

The collection includes materials for adults, teens and children. It's proven so popular that Lundt started an anime club that meets twice a month and holds special events, like an anime drawing class.

In all, $742,500 in grants from the Madison Community Foundation have gone to develop specific themed collections in each of the 27 Dane County libraries. Nearly 15,000 new items have been added.

At the South Madison branch, the money was used to acquire materials on education, employment and housing — topics made more timely by the current recession.

"You can't improve your education if you don't have housing," explains Margie Navarre Saaf, branch supervisor for the Alicia Ashman, Lakeview and South Madison libraries. "We are seeing people who have been in the job force for five, 10, 15, 25 years who are now unemployed. They come to the library to use the computer for job searches, and they need help accessing government forms online and searchable employment sites."

The Monroe Street branch, meanwhile, has acquired preloaded Playaway digital audio books, which each hold up to 80 hours of content. The audio books are so popular the library has a hard time keeping them on the shelves.

To date, the circulation of grant materials has topped 40,000. Among the most popular special collection items are the Confessions of a Shopaholic DVD (688 holds as of July 1) and The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler (330 holds). The total number of current holds on grant collection materials is 29,923.

Formed in 1942, the Madison Community Foundation (www.madisoncommunityfoundation.org) has encouraged, facilitated and managed long-term philanthropy. Over the last decade, the group has given more than $2 million and funneled $5 million in private donations to Dane County public libraries.

In early 2007, an MCF grant-making committee met with library board members to identify projects it could fund. The idea of adding specific collections was the overwhelming choice.

"By building strong libraries the Madison Community Foundation is building strong communities," says Rich Lynch, the committee chair. "This is a project that will have impact far beyond the walls of the libraries themselves."

The MCF provided $27,500 each to 12 libraries during the first wave of grants, which began in 2007 and continues through this fall. The second wave of $27,500 grants were distributed in April to 14 libraries. The second-wave libraries have until 2011 to spend the grant money.

"We wanted to empower the librarians and their staff to dream and think big," says Tom Linfield, MCF vice president of grant making and community initiatives. "Each library has its individual strengths, and we asked them what they would like to be known for."

Linfield says the MCF wanted to ensure that these library collections would continue in perpetuity, so it started a program to help the libraries develop partnerships and raise additional funds. A challenge grant to build endowments for the libraries has the MCF donating $1 for every $2 that the libraries raise.

"Money collection is the bane of every library," notes Pam Bosben, director of the Rosemary Garfoot library in Cross Plains.

Rosemary Garfoot is the first library in the state to be LEED-certified because of its environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. The library has radiant heat flooring, insulation made from recycled blue jeans, cork flooring, carpeting made from recycled carpet squares, a rain garden and many other features.

Not surprisingly, Bosben and her staff chose the environment and ecology as their theme, acquiring books and DVDs on climate change, recycling, green cleaning, global warming and related topics. The library was able to stretch its funding by getting discount pricing from a California-based distributor.

Susan Hedrick, director at the Waunakee library, was able to spend the grant money twice. During the first round, Hedrick was director at the Verona library, where she and the staff chose art and architecture as its topics.

"The books we chose for the collection are timeless," Hedrick says. "Many of them are coffee-table books that are expensive because they are glossy-paged high-end books that I couldn't justify spending $75 or more to purchase prior to receiving the grant."

The library formed a partnership with Epic Systems to help fund art classes for preschoolers through teenagers. Hedrick says the locally produced DVD Mad City Chickens is one of the most popular items in the Waunakee collection. It had 22 holds on the first day it was available. As of the end of June, it had 100 holds.

The Waunakee library was funded in the second wave of grants to develop a collection on Wisconsin. It includes books, films and music by state authors and musicians, and tapes featuring languages of Wisconsin's early settlers, such as Polish, German and Norwegian.

What subjects didn't make the cut? Linfield says travel and science were two topics that weren't chosen because of short shelf life.

Collection themes by library

• Alicia Ashman: Graphic novels & anime
• Hawthorne: Pop culture
• Lakeview: Film & film history
• Madison Central: Small business
• Meadowridge: Strong families
• Monroe Street: Audio books
• Pinney: Sustainable living
• Sequoya: Art of the picture book
• South Madison: Education and employment
• Belleville: Performing arts
• Black Earth: Literacy enhancement
• Cambridge: Agriculture
• Dane County Bookmobile: Large print books
• Deerfield: Sports and fitness
• DeForest: Gaming
• E.D. Locke (McFarland): Crafts and hobbies
• Marshall: Music
• Mazomanie: Home and garden
• Middleton: Foreign language
• Monona: Health and wellness
• Mount Horeb: Popular science
• Oregon: Food and nutrition
• Rosemary Garfoot (Cross Plains): Ecology
• Stoughton: Life transitions
• Sun Prairie: World cultures
• Verona: Art and architecture
• Waunakee: Wisconsin

Go to www.scls.info/danecollections for a list of collections by library.