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David Ding, 15, of Farmington Hills looks through the Farmington Community Library's movie rentals.Libraries write the book on how to stay relevant
Area districts reach out to patrons with wireless Internet, video rentals and household tools.
Director Vickey Bloom of the Grosse Pointe Public Library displays a tool that can be checked out. The library has rented tools since 1941.
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GROSSE POINTE -- As their bulky encyclopedias gather dust, Metro Detroit's libraries are doing an increasingly brisk trade in digital media like e-books and DVDs.
Liz Wall says she hardly ever visits a bookstore or video rental shop anymore. The semi-retired psychotherapist relishes her library's selection of offbeat films, current books and even household tools.
Librarians across southeast Michigan say the demands of a faster-paced, technology-oriented society keep them looking for unusual and creative ways to stay relevant and keep patrons happy.
The transformation has Metro Detroit libraries beefing up electronic resources, such as online databases.
They're also morphing from research centers to entertainment venues, some by offering a hefty DVD collection for checkout or by hosting in-library concerts.
Whether it's the hip teen room "Club Q&A" at the Southfield Library, the cozy living room feeling with a natural gas fireplace and comfy armchairs at the Plymouth District Library or the myriad cafes and coffee shops that are becoming the norm, evidence abounds that these institutions aren't the somber, hush-hush places they used to be.
"It does feel a little bit like Blockbuster in here," said Jim Barnett, 36, who recently browsed the DVD collection at the gleaming Southfield Public Library.
Some growing trends include:
• Downloadable audio books, which patrons can save to their own MP3 players. The audio has a built-in lifespan, so it automatically deletes itself from the user's MP3 after a certain time frame, according to Brian Stoutenberg, director of the Troy Public Library.
• Wireless networks that allow clients to surf the Net from any spot inside the library
• E-books, which patrons download and read on a computer screen or other specially built appliance. Some libraries allow users to download e-books right from their home computers.
• Video gaming tournaments for teens, such as those at the Ann Arbor District Library.
• Interactive software programs on everything from how to build a deck to learning a foreign language or practicing for a U.S. citizenship test or college entrance exam.
Both Doug Zyskowski, director of the Southfield Public Library, and Pat Coady, director of the Dearborn Public Library system, both said they are spending about 10 percent more each year on electronic resources, including equipment and subscriptions to online databases.
"It was a deliberate decision on our part. We saw where the circulation of media was increasing, so we said, well, we should put a lot more emphasis here," Coady said. "In the last five years we've doubled the number of public Internet stations to 110, with 60 of those at Centennial," Dearborn's main branch.
"Libraries have to be very assertive and very sensitive to what their users want. The real key to success is not just buying all this technology, it's looking at other things, like cafes or book discussion groups, to make people see that libraries are an important part of the community," said Linda Farynk, immediate past president of the Michigan Library Association.
"We're morphing more frequently now than we have in the past with the introduction of reading materials and information in electronic format, as well as new tools to use them."
While libraries continue to add to their print collections every year, librarians in Troy, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe and Southfield all say the age of the Internet means they have scaled back on buying expensive, space-hogging reference books. They opt instead to pay for a subscription to reference materials that users can then access online.
"In the old days, we'd take a child to an encyclopedia. Now, we take them to a database because the information is more current. It also means several people can look up information at one time, instead of, say, waiting around until the 'U' volume of the encyclopedia was free," Zyskowski said.
Wall counts herself among the minority of library users who take advantage of nearly every service offered at her library. She gets a kick out of the tool loan program, a popular novelty the Grosse Pointe library has offered since 1941. Besides the latest novel, users can borrow useful gadgets like a socket set, a trowel, an edger or a crowbar.
"I've checked out the hammer, the branch trimmer, the clamps you use when you glue stuff," said Wall. "People laugh. They can't believe I got it at the library."
Other library patrons remember a time when libraries were just for books, whether for research or for pleasure. But Barnett said he eschews the rows and rows of books in favor of the DVD collection.
"If I want to read a book, I buy it. But it's a lot cheaper to check out a DVD here than buy one," he said.
You can reach Amy Lee at (248) 647-8605 or alee@detnews.com.
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