More Than Books — The Pottsboro Library is A Guiding Light for the Community
“How many months until we have to close?” was the question that woke Volunteer Director of Pottsboro Library, Dianne Connery.
Dianne was attending a city meeting 9 years ago when talks of funding turned to closing the library’s doors for good. The only library in town relied on donations and volunteers, both were coming up short.
That fight continues today, but with Dianne leading the charge for funding and free access to the internet.
She had come to the tumbleweed town of Pottsboro, Texas wanting to do her own thing. The library, a former post office, offered gray walls and over crowded book shelves. Dianne thought, there might as well be a “children not welcome here” sign on the door.
Checking the log, she discovered the last book was checked out years prior to her arrival. Did Pottsboro even know they had a public library?
“I just wanted to keep to myself and do my job,” she said talking above her glasses which sat on the end of her nose.
But the closure of her community’s only library, wasn’t the legacy she wanted to leave. The only solution she saw was to change the idea her town had about the library.
“My boys grew up in the city, and frankly (they) had access to what was then cutting edge tech” Dianne said, “the fact is without technology these kids won’t stand a chance and they won’t be on a level playing field.”
There are limited opportunities for the internet in the underserved neighborhoods within Pottsboro, with satellite being the only option.
“I get emotional about it because what is their life going to be without the internet?” asked Dianne.
A Little Library in Pottsboro Texas
Pottsboro is one of many rural communities near the Oklahoma border, one most Texans haven’t heard of themselves. They have a population of 2,449 with government subsidized housing near the now almost abandoned downtown.
The downtown doesn’t offer coffee shops with free WiFi, or schools with enough bandwidth to go around. Many of the residents who walk through the doors of the library are encountering a computer for the first time.
The digital divide is affecting the future of Pottsboro’s youth as well. Children in cities with internet access are now naturally equipped to unlock smartphones, connect to the internet, and create websites.
The Pottsboro librarians speak of teens and high school graduates who walk in unaware of how to turn a computer on, or where to find the internet on the desktop.
The library has become the town’s primary technological educator. Dianne’s only library employee, Lindy Meiser, has fully leaned in to the tech remodel, making her motto “We will figure it out together.”
Dianne fought for those moments of curiosity and discovery in her library. She added a computer lab with gaming chairs and won a grant for better internet.
“Someone once told me you aren’t asking for enough, think bigger and ask for more” Dianne said of the grant writing “So we did, we asked for a lot more.”
Dianne and Lindy sit down once a week and walk residents through technology training; and also teach environmental sustainability classes — they even opened up a community garden. Unlike the nostalgic idea of libraries being book centered, the Pottsboro Library is community centered.
Dianne kept looking for social responsibilities her library could take on. When a patron confided that she only had access to the family car on weekends, the library started renting bikes.
“I just thought, if we become important enough to the community, they will be up in arms if we have to close” Dianne said “We want them to know we are here for them!”
Libraries are re-branding themselves in 2020, looking towards technology and recognizing community roadblocks in order to make themselves just as vital as essential workers.
Any institution built for knowledge must find a way to stay relevant in their time or face extinction.
The objects inside a library might change, but it’s purpose of discovery and knowledge continues to evolve.
This rebranding has been the source of growing pains for many libraries within locked down cities; but for those on the outskirts of ingenuity, rebranding is a battle.
Jobs, schools, and entire lives have moved out of the fields, off the roadway systems, and into an online universe.
But this new world isn’t all inclusive. Rural communities lacking infrastructure are being left behind.
The Pottsboro Library is Essential
A few years ago, the internet in the library was so slow that a guest couldn’t log on in the computer lab while the front desk was checking out a book.
This was another stereotype Dianne fought against.
“Libraries have to fight against nostalgia because people think oh you would go to a library to check out a book but I don’t need a book so I’m not going to the library,” she said “I think with the internet, the sky’s the limit because the internet infrastructure doesn’t exist out here.”
Essential to Pottsboro meant fewer books and more technology.
The Pottsboro Library now has the fastest internet in town — but when Covid-19 put the community on lockdown, they needed more access points for students to continue learning.
The library and school district worked together to identify areas where broadband gaps exist for students, and set out to find a solution. After learning of ITDRC’s projectConnect initiative, they made a request for a mobile hotspot trailer to connect students living in a remote apartment complex to complete the school year.
It is believed that children learning from home without structured online courses could be a year behind — once normality returns with in person learning.
They also installed an access point outside the Pottsboro library to further support its efforts to become the community technological hub. The next morning, Lindy pulled into a packed parking lot.
“I had never seen it that full,” she explains “I knocked on a car window and asked what was going on.”
Word about the new connections traveled across the small town fast. People drove to the parking lots to take exams, finish high school assignments and send out college applications.
Dianne says it’s the kids who noticed the new connections first, and found the sweet spots around the building too.
“We really don’t have to say anything, it’s such a small town and if there’s a connection, everyone knows it,” she says.
With the loss of jobs due to Covid-19, patrons now sit in the parking lots and take food handler’s courses and fill out job applications.
“We help people file unemployment about three times a week now,” says Lindy “This is why this internet is so important here, there’s no unemployment office they can go into and they need to support families.”
The Pottsboro library doesn’t plan to close their doors for good anytime soon.
They plan to continue their tech outreach and lead their community. The internet, like books, can change your life. You can go anywhere you want on the web, walk out of your world and into another.
“We tell some kids it’s magic, but mainly we want them to walk through our doors and know someone cares,” says Lindy. “No one will shush you here.”
