2022 Annual Report

Message from the Executive Director

“It is so good to see you again.” These words and sentiment echoed throughout much of 2022 as residents and customers returned to visit the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in person, many for the first time since the pandemic.

As always, our staff was ready to welcome them and to provide many reasons to visit and ways to connect with us: the newest releases in books and movies, cool things to borrow from our ever-growing Library of Things, an Assistive Tools Kit created using 3D technology at our Makerplace, a community garden producing fresh vegetables for summertime produce swaps and our One Book, One Village author event, held in-person for the first time since 2019 and simultaneously livestreamed on the library’s YouTube channel—another library first! And we even had customers of all ages playing classic video arcade games at the library.

Our Makerplace celebrated its first anniversary, topping off a fabulous inaugural year, setting the stage for more making, creating and cooking. And we earned a five-star rating in Library Journal's national rating of public libraries for the eleventh time. I couldn’t be prouder of everything we accomplished, and I invite you to take a closer look on the pages of this report.

In closing, I’d like to give a special thanks to my amazing colleagues, the library staff who make all of this possible, and to the Friends of the Library and Library Foundation for their ongoing generosity and support. Thank you for all that you do.

And to our community, keep connecting with us, discover all the library has to offer, and let us know how we can continue to serve you better.

Mike Driskell

Message from the President of the Library Board of Trustees

Five stars! That may be all I have to say for 2022. Once again, your Arlington Heights Memorial Library earned the prestigious five-star award from Library Journal. These honors are a testament to the incredible leadership and the awesome staff that we have here at the library. Thank you for all your hard work!

Their efforts bring a quality to our library that allow us to bring to you programs that make you think, allow you to grow and to have some fun. These go from the incredible continuation of One Book, One Village to the fun The Arcade Age exhibit. While books will never be far from our hearts, providing you with programming and services that makes Arlington Heights a go-to destination is always behind what we do. More to come in 2023!

Fiscal responsibility is also important to the Board of Trustees. Providing you the services that you need and deserve, while also being good stewards of your money are a driving approach for us. As we have many times in the past, we accomplished everything without increasing the tax levy.

Following the 2023 election, your Board will look a little different, but the same values of providing you a place of learning, comfort and safety will always be at the top of our list.

Greg Zyck

Snoopy and the Red Baron

January marked the final month of the Snoopy and the Red Baron exhibit at the library, generously funded in part by the Friends of the Library. During its nine-week stay in Arlington Heights, approximately 9,037 customers of varying ages enjoyed the beautifully presented Peanuts comic strips, ephemera and Snoopy’s iconic doghouse. Volunteer docents lead exhibit tours, and a total of 152 customers toured the exhibit during these drop-in tours.

Thank You for Making Us a 5-Star Library Once Again

For the eleventh time, Arlington Heights Memorial Library (AHML) received a five-star rating in Library Journal's national rating of public libraries. Five stars is the highest rating that a library can receive.

"This award acknowledges the work of our exceptional staff and the community of Arlington Heights that so strongly supports and uses the library,” said Executive Director Mike Driskell.

Library Journal comprises its scores for America's Star Libraries using statistics from circulation of physical items, circulation of e-materials, library visits, program attendance, public computer users, Wi-Fi sessions, electronic retrievals such as database usage and website visits.

In the expenditure range of $10M-$29.9M, only 10 public libraries nationwide earned a five-star rating including AHML, which is just one of three Illinois libraries to receive this top rating.

5 STARS 11 YEARS

Senior Phone Series Celebrates 100th Meeting

Senior and Accessible Services (SAS) celebrated the 100th meeting of their phone-based book program series. Since the first discussion in April of 2020, customers listened to selections from 39 different books on subjects ranging from nature essays to show business memoirs and beyond. To celebrate the milestone, SAS staff delivered a “party in a bag” to each participant.

TAKE H ME JOBS KIT

Take Home Jobs Kits

Take Home Jobs Kits for job seekers included helpful resources and information, worksheets to help create resumes and cover letters. The kits are available by request to any cardholder who contacts the library requesting additional job seeking guidance and library services. In 2022, a total of 250 kits were distributed to customers.

Bumps & Babies Resource Fair

More than 100 attendees came to Youth Services’ first annual Bumps & Babies Resource Fair. Eighteen businesses attended, including the Arlington Heights Police Department, childproofing services, a photography studio, doula and lactation consultants, and businesses to pamper the new mom or mom-to-be. There was a play area for caregivers and children to enjoy, a sale cart of used books from the Friends of the Library, a library table promoting a variety of resources and services, Teen Advisory Board volunteers to assist as needed, and every visitor received a bag of library items to help them on their parenting journey. Attending businesses also donated items as door prize giveaways.

Library Cards

In April, 348 new residents signed up for library cards, an increase of 88.1% over last April. This increase coincided with the fact that the library continued to see a higher number of visitors, along with a return to more outreach at schools and various local sites. The library also saw more online card registrations in 2022 than in 2021. With kids back in school for the entire year, the library created more kids' cards in 2022, an increase of 400 cards for kids.

Spring School Art Show Returns

Student artwork from seven District 25 elementary schools and two middle schools returned in-person for the May 2022 Spring Art Show. The exhibit was visited by approximately 4,800 art lovers of all ages. Just over 600 students and families celebrated the student artists at two opening receptions. Visitors admired the art, took pictures with District 25 art teachers and were happy to see the library bring back the annual event.

Humanitarian Aid Drive for Ukraine

During a successful two-week humanitarian drive for Ukraine co-sponsored by UCARE, Inc., hundreds of essential items were collected. The Arlington Heights community donated baby food, first aid kits, clothes, shoes and over-the-counter medicine to this organization serving Ukranian families.

Ukraine TrustChain co-sponsored a letter writing service project at the library that brought messages of hope and support from the library’s young customers to Ukrainian children evacuated from active war zones. Letter writing stations for kids, tweens and teens were stationed in the library.

The library also partnered with Mission:MathMinds to host a book drive for Ukrainian children in refugee sites and underserved communities throughout Chicago. In two weeks, approximately 1,000 books were collected and shipped to various partners in Ukraine and other communities.

Successful First Lit Stroll

The library’s first Lit Stroll took place in downtown Arlington Heights, bringing readers together to meet and mingle with Illinois authors Jon Seidel, Mia P. Manansala, Lisa Barr and Elizabeth Berg. The library partnered with four Arlington Heights venues, Peggy Kinnane’s, La Tasca Tapas, Hey Nonny and Arlington Ale House, to host an author at each site. One hundred and sixteen people came out to hear about the authors’ novels and writing process and mingle with other literary lovers as they strolled from location to location.

Summer Volunteer Squads

Throughout the summer, 125 Arlington Heights teens grades 7-12 gave back through the library’s Summer Volunteer Squads (SVS) program. In total, teen volunteers clocked around 989 service hours in June and July, presented 25 library programs, and completed other projects to support the library and our community. The 2022 SVS lineup included the Maker Squad, a new Squad that focused on ways to introduce teens to the Makerplace by creating project guides throughout the summer and leading interactive tours. Another new Squad was the Cemetery Sleuths who used library genealogy resources to discover more about notable figures buried at Wheeling Township Arlington Heights Cemetery. Returning in 2022 for the first time since 2019, the Reading Table Team Squad volunteers managed the Summer Reading Desk in Kids’ World each day throughout the week. These teen volunteers helped register the 2,918 youth who signed up for Summer Reading through the end of July and were a key component to the success of the program.

Digital Services and Senior and Accessible Services

Senior Center Tech Fair

staff and volunteers hosted the first tech fair held at the Arlington Heights Senior Center. Seventy-nine seniors had a great time sampling many of the library’s technology offerings. Attendees experienced virtual reality, strengthened their muscles with the Nintendo Ring Fit and had their photos taken in “outer space” at the photobooth. They tried robotics and Mario Kart, learned about the Makerplace and tried a wide variety of assistive devices available to borrow from the Library of Things.

FanCon Returns

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library celebrated the in-person return of FanCon, with about 650 residents of all ages stopping by the library for the sixth annual comic book and pop culture event. Highlights included a live-performance from Raks Geek, Jedi training sessions, drawing workshop, Pokémon scavenger hunt, fandom-related arts and crafts, Artists' Alley, which gave customers a chance to meet featured artists and exhibitors, and more.

Storytime in the Park

During summer, the popular Storytime in the Park program added a new location, Camelot Park, and an evening option.

More than 850 people attended Storytimes in the Park across its three locations in 2022.

LitCrates

Prove Popular

Given the success of LitCrates for adults and teens, Youth Services expanded the library’s book selection service to tweens in grades 4–6. Each crate contains one curated book and a few themed goodies. Staff curated 300 Adult LitCrate boxes in 2022. Customers could sign up for a six-month subscription, which included a bimonthly subscription box. In 2022, 161 teens participated and received 232 LitCrates. From March to December, 73 tweens participated

Outreach E orts Grow

From a return to in-school visits to new festivals, the library’s outreach efforts grew in 2022. Besides the regular Farmers Market visits and special events like National Night Out and the Fourth of July Parade, the library added new visits, like a presence at the new Heritage Fest, the first multicultural festival in Arlington Heights.

National Senior Health and Fitness Day offered free health screenings to close to 200 people at the Arlington Heights Senior Center. The library greeted more than 300 customers at the Butterfly Garden as part of The Arlington Heights Garden Club’s Garden Walk. The library hosted a tent outside the Makerplace building during the Frontier Days Festival where bike riders used the new bike repair station to tune up their bikes and refill their tires. And after an almost three-year hiatus, the library visited the Hispanic community festival of Misión San Juan Diego Catholic Church of Arlington Heights to promote library services.

Staff also visited Forest View District 214 Women’s and Children’s Center, Mitsuwa Marketplace, Kinokuniya Bookstore, Autumn Harvest and the return of Harmony Fest featuring the Taste of Arlington Heights.

The 16th Annual Teen Film Fest was a dazzling success. It was the first in-person festival at the library since 2019. Submissions from teen filmmakers in 7th grade through recent high school graduates were screened at the fest. The teen filmmakers received feedback, encouragement and insights from the volunteer judges. Judges this year were Shelli Nicole, a cultural critic and recent Emerging Critics Grant recipient from the Chicago Film Critics Association, Annette Bochenek, a film historian and professor, and Bryan Bednarek, a digital media specialist and video editor. More than 100 members of the community attended the fest to celebrate the filmmakers. The judges handed out awards and attendees gathered in the Hub for an after party.

Summer Reading Challenge

Summer Reading was back in full swing! Customers lined up outside the library on the morning of June 6 to be first in line to register. Over 500 customers signed up on the first day alone. Over 2,950 youth, from birth to high school, participated, doubling last year's participation and approaching pre-pandemic levels. The youth of Arlington Heights collectively logged over 35,000 days of reading during summer 2022.

Labor of Love at Community Garden

All summer, library staff and volunteers rolled up their sleeves and volunteered their time tending a garden plot at the Viatorian Giving Garden, located at 1212 Euclid Avenue. The library and other participating gardeners and organizations donated half of what they grew to local charitable organizations such as the Wheeling Township Food Pantry. Since its founding in 2012, the Viatorian Giving Garden has donated more than 10,000 pounds of vegetables to help those in need and by early August had already surpassed 1,000 pounds of produce donated for 2022! The library was grateful to be a part of this meaningful community effort for the first time.

Museum Adventure Passes Return

In response to customer feedback, the Museum Adventure Pass program returned, allowing Arlington Heights cardholders to check out passes to several area museums and attractions. Museum Adventure Passes continued to prove popular throughout 2022.

The library’s garden included a combination of herbs and vegetables like kale, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini along with pollinator flowers to attract butterflies and bees. The other half of what was grown was harvested and brought to the library’s Makerplace for monthly Garden & Produce Swaps and used as fresh ingredients in some of the culinary classes. A special thanks for the Friends of the Library for funding this garden in 2022.

Makerplace Celebrates First Anniversary

There’s only one place in Arlington Heights where you can custom engrave a glass or cutting board, embroider fabric with a monogram, create custom T-shirts or tote bags, use a 3D printer and so much more - all in one building. In 2022, the Arlington Heights community discovered the Makerplace, took classes, learned how to use equipment and got creative making their first DIY projects. The Makerplace celebrated its First Anniversary in September. In 2022, a total of 220 classes were offered and more than 13,500 people visited the Makerplace. There were 960 items 3D printed, with more than 100 of those being the library’s new assistive tools. About five miles of embroidery stitches were sewn, with almost 1.8 million stitches made on the embroidery machine.

Seven Tools to Help Make Everyday Tasks Easier

Some day-to-day tasks like carrying grocery bags, holding a key to open a door and twisting off small lids or bottle caps just got a whole lot easier thanks to the library’s Assistive Tools Kit, a collection of seven small devices created on the library’s 3D printers. The tools include a bottle opener, key turner, pen ball, palm pen, tube opener, signature guard and bag carrier. The tools have proved incredibly popular - 130 items have been ordered and 3D printed along with the circulating 7-item kits from the Library of Things, which was checked out 23 times since debuting in October.

Clark and Division Takes Center Stage

For the first time since 2019, the signature event for the library’s annual One Book, One Village (OBOV) community read, an evening of conversation with the featured book’s author, took place in person. More than 270 readers filled Forest View Auditorium to hear author Naomi Hirahara delve into this year’s OBOV title, Clark and Division, a gripping mystery of one Japanese American family’s search for truth in 1940s Chicago. More than 110 people also tuned into the library’s YouTube channel and watched the event live. This simultaneous livestream of an author event on YouTube was a first for the Arlington Heights Memorial Library and its community read.

Hirahara was joined on stage by Erik Matsunaga, an author and historian of Chicago’s Japanese American community. Hirahara and Matsunaga took the audience on an insightful journey, including the development of Clark and Division, their experiences growing up as Japanese Americans, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and their subsequent relocation from the camps to cities including Chicago. The conversation was followed by an audience Q&A.

Since Clark and Division was announced as the book for OBOV 2022 in August leading up to the October event, copies of the book had circulated more than 2,200 times—the highest circulation of an OBOV title since 2015. An Evening with Naomi Hirahara was supported, in part, by the Friends of the Library.

Halloween Fun

Kids’ World hosted its 10th annual Halloween Fun celebration, with this being the first time in two years it was offered as a drop-in event. Customers of all ages enjoyed the event with more than 500 people attending.

OCT

Texting Service

In order to greater meet the accessibility needs of the community, LibChat services were expanded to include text

The Arcade Age

After a late November opening, the library was bustling with love for arcade games and nostalgia all December long, and well into January. More than 2,700 visitors came to The Arcade Age exhibit in November with another 6,994 visitors in December. All ages explored and played the games and shared memories, particularly grateful for access to this activity during cold-weather months and while kids were out of school. On loan from the Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center and sponsored by the Friends of the Library, the exhibit tells the story of the history of arcade games from their inception in the 1940s to their general decline in the 1990s.

The 12 arcade games were set to free play for library visitors to enjoy. On November 18, the exhibit officially opened with an 80s-themed dance party, with 450 visitors of all ages. Arcade-centric and inspired programming offered throughout the month met the interests of many different audiences. A total of 20 gamers ranging from teens to adults competed in tournaments for Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man and Tetris with more tournament play continuing into January.

Holiday Book Drive

This year more than 1,000 books were generously donated for infants, children and teens for Wheeling Township's Adopt-a-Family program. Special thanks go to the library staff and volunteers, the Rolling Green Country Club Women’s Golf Association, the Lakeshore Circle Book Club and Patton Elementary School for their very generous donations. The library book drive has provided more than 23,000 books to children and teens in need since 1998.

Holidays Keep Equipment Humming

From drumsticks to mugs, sheet music to ornaments, the laser cutters at the Makerplace got quite a workout with over 187 circulations in December. Sublimation printing was also a huge draw with 188 sheets of sublimation paper sold and printed. 110 3D prints were submitted and printed by Makerplace staff in December as well. The holidays were a busy time at the Makerplace!

A Year in the Kitchen

December marked the first full year of culinary classes offered to the public at the Makerplace’s new commercial kitchen. In total, the library offered 74 classes and welcomed 1,057 attendees. Though the variety of classes were designed for adult audiences 18+, this year’s schedule also included classes designed for tweens, teens, parents and even one instructed by an ESL volunteer as a complement to One Book, One Village 2022. Overall, the classes in the kitchen were one of the library’s most in-demand offerings in 2022.

2022 YEAR in NUMBERS

POPULATION SERVED

GOVERNING

Seven-member

Carole

BUDGET 202

CIRCULATION