Friends of Lansing library concludes third annual Online Auction

The Friends of Lansing Community Library recently concluded its third annual Online Auction (auctria.events/FriendsofLCL2022), raising just under $5,000 to support the library’s programming and offerings. The fundraiser ran from Oct. 6 through 12 and allowed participants to bid on a wide variety of items, including artwork, food, gift certificates and more.

Library Director Susie Gutenberger expressed her gratitude to the community for a successful auction this year and explained the impact the funds will have on the library.

As Gutenberger explained, the Online Auction began during the pandemic out of a need to get creative.

“[The Friends] had a very successful and fun ‘Costumes and Cocktails’ for adults,” she said. “And it was a great fundraising event in the fall. Adults would come dressed up in costume, we would have an art auction, and there was food and drinks and a band. And it was just such a great event, and we had had a few of those. And then COVID [hit]. So, our Friends had to reimagine how they were going to fundraise for us during the world pandemic because we still needed to run the library. And they came up with the idea to have this online auction, and we solicit donations from local artists and businesses.”

Gutenberger said the first two auctions went very well, and the Friends have continued to raise the fundraising goal every year. She said this year’s total came to around $4,800.

“We had a number of wonderful items, and it was very successful,” she said. “Our Friends group worked very hard, so they just about met their fundraising goal.”

The money raised during this year’s auction will primarily go toward supporting the library’s summer reading program, which Gutenberger said is “one of the largest, most successful family programs we do during the year to try to bridge the learning gap over the summers.”

“And then our Friends group also helps fund the adult programming through the year and our family and after-school programming, so it’ll mostly go to that,” she said. “And then depending on how much is left over, I usually purchase nonfiction books as well. Those can be quite expensive.”

Gutenberger said she and other library staff were grateful to see such a “wonderful outpouring of support.”

“It’s just really great to see the community rally behind our Friends group and have a successful auction,” she said. “They’re all volunteers that work very hard. And so, meeting their fundraising goal and having a successful auction is significant. It helps morale for sure. The community definitely came out and supported the library and let us know that they support us, they care about us, they see what we’re doing and that we’re an important part of our community.”

Aside from the Online Auction, Lansing Community Library has fared quite well this year, Gutenberger said.

“We are definitely back to being busy,” she said. “Our circulation is getting closer to pre-COVID circulation numbers. We are consistently making new cards for new patrons, and we’re back to being pretty much over capacity for most of our programs.”

In addition, staff recently opened a new children’s library and have brought back in-person story times, which are consistently well attended, Gutenberger said. All of the library’s public computers have also been made available.

“We had only put half of them in service so we could space people out more, but we have those back in service fully as of last week,” she said last week. “So, we’re just very busy. [We’re] back to being at capacity and excited to see the kids back for programming and families back for story time. So, it’s been a really great summer and fall, looking forward to our winter being just as busy.”

The increase in programming and participation, while a big positive for the library, has also led to a significant challenge: space.

“Pre-COVID, we had completely outgrown our space,” Gutenberger said. “Our programming room only holds about 30 people, so that can get really tight when you’ve got 25 people in story time. And we don’t have an HVAC system down in our community rooms, so there’s not great ventilation. We have baseboard heat, we have very limited storage, and we have pretty much no space for new books. … We are exploring our options for putting on a small addition to the library with a larger community room and better [disability] access to the library. So, we hope to have that project rolling probably in 2024.”

In the meantime, Gutenberger and others are celebrating positive feedback from residents and plenty of progress since the pandemic. Gutenberger said patrons have been especially grateful regarding the library’s providing of masks and similar sanitation materials and its mask-required hours on Fridays.

“We do mask-mandated Fridays where if anyone, any patrons that come to the library, they need to wear a mask,” she said. “And we have patrons that really appreciate that because we still have some immune-compromised individuals who would like to come and use the library with everyone being masked.”

For more information on Lansing Community Library, visit its website at lansinglibrary.org.

Lansing at Large appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.

In brief:

Library hosts ‘Everyday Mindfulness’

Lansing Community Library will hold an interactive workshop Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. at the library, located at 27 Auburn Rd. “Everyday Mindfulness,” led by Diana Dimitrova, will introduce attendees to several mindfulness techniques and will take a close and compassionate look into the ways people can add more mindfulness to their daily lives.

Dimitrova is the coordinator of Mindful IC, a program that offers credit and noncredit mindfulness and meditation opportunities to Ithaca College students, faculty and staff. A certified meditation teacher, Dimitrova is passionate about teaching meditation and supporting everyone who is interested in taking the path to greater presence.

To register, call (607) 533-4939 or email info@lansinglibrary.org.