Thanks to everyone that attended the first public meeting for the South Branch planning process! Held in Tremont’s Gruss Hall on December 10th, the event welcomed residents and library patrons from surrounding neighborhoods to begin crafting a shared vision for the branch’s future. The interactive meeting was also the first of all the branches in the CPL150 Community Vision Plan, which includes South, Fleet, Sterling, and Woodland.
Intended to provide a more effective and engaging experience than typical public meetings, the event offered attendees a variety of feedback formats. The meeting began with short presentations on CPL’s Strategic Plan from Tim Diamond and an overview of the vision planning process from the CUDC‘s David Jurca. For those unable to attend the public meeting or attendees that want to review the intro presentation, the slides shown at the public meeting are posted below:
Following the intro presentation, audience members were given time to make public comments at the microphone before moving on to six engagement stations carefully designed and installed throughout the gym space. 
Attendees were free to visit the engagement stations at their own pace. Walking and chatting with neighbors between stations, attendees shared important insights with the planning team through written text, group conversations, and video-recorded personal stories. Each of the six stations were marked with bold graphics and clear instructions:
- Station 1: Discovering Options Libraries are changing fast in response to digital information. How can South Branch continue to offer innovative services? Take a seat and grab a “clicker” for a short interactive presentation.
- Station 2: Defining the Vision Our Advisory Committee defined the vision for South Branch as “inspirational,”
“community,” and “accessibility.” What do these words mean to you? Add post-it notes to each category to help guide the vision for library services, facilities, and neighborhood. - Station 3: Library Stories Everyone has their own special memories of their local library – what’s yours? Have a seat and take 3 minutes to reminisce with our videographer about what “the library” means to you.
- Station 4: Mapping Assets South Branch isn’t just the building, it’s the whole neighborhood. Let us know what
other local landmarks & institutions you use regularly. Then, grab an 11×17 of the current South Branch and tell us what existing library resources you use. - Station 5: Branch(ing) Conversations What’s working? What’s not? How can South Branch become its best in the future? Have a seat to discuss South Branch’s current strengths, weaknesses, & opportunities in a 20-minute small group discussion.
- Station 6: Survey Your feedback is crucial to our next steps, so pull up a chair and let us know what you think
about the future of South Branch and the larger CPL. Fill out our paper survey, available in English or Spanish. - Children’s Area For budding community members, a children’s area was provided with coloring book pages of the South Branch building for young minds to share their design ideas.
One of the engagement stations provided printed surveys for attendees for fill-out, written in both English and Spanish. The survey is now available online, so please take a few minutes to complete the survey, if you haven’t done so already, and share the survey link with your friends and neighbors.
Online survey link: www.surveymonkey.com/s/CPL150