Cleveland Public Library 2014 Report to the Community

Message from the
Board

In 2014 we spent a lot of time listening. We reached out to residents and key stakeholders throughout the year to engage the community in a comprehensive needs assessment. While we have always been good listeners and receptive to new ideas, in the past year we reached even deeper into the local communities to understand their needs and determine the appropriate services that will be relevant and best serve our neighborhoods in the future.

Public meetings were held in the South Branch neighborhood this past year and in 2015 will include the neighborhoods of Central, Slavic Village, Mount Pleasant, Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre. These will become rolling conversations that will continue at all branches.

Our overall objective is to seriously evaluate our service model, keeping in mind the changing demographics of the city, our fiscal situation and the condition of our buildings by 2019—a goal set forth in our Strategic Plan as CPL150. This process is not just about our facilities; rather, it is about our programs and processes and how we approach the way we serve the community.

We are not the same Library we were 10 years ago; nor will we be the same Library a decade from now. What we do know is that, in spite of state budget cuts and a weakened property tax base, we are more passionate than ever about providing equal access to quality library services.

The Library will continue to find new ways to evolve while providing those services as we prepare for 2019 when the Library will turn 150 years old. We look to the Strategic Plan and continued feedback from the community to guide us as we embrace new ways to adapt to the ever-changing needs of the people we serve. We thank the community for its continued trust and support.

Thomas D. Corrigan 2014 President, Board of Trustees

2014 Members of the Board of Library Trustees

Maritza Rodriguez, Vice President

Alan Seifullah, Secretary

Alice G. Butts

John M. Hairston

Anthony T. Parker

Rick Werner