The Beloit Public Library, just a five minute drive from the Beloit College campus, is a pillar of the community which many Beloit College students and local families do not take advantage of. Amy Mitchell, the library’s marketing and communications coordinator, was kind enough to give some insight on the kinds of services the library provides.
Of the many topics she covered, the first was the access to quiet study areas. She says, “For one thing, when construction’s not going on and there’s not all that noise, there are spaces here to just hide. I know a lot of times when you’re on campus and you’re studying and friends see you, suddenly you’re in a conversation, so it’s a great space to separate yourself and work.”
For students who find themselves stressed from their workload, the library can also be a great place to decompress. Their extensive fiction collection contains something for everyone, and in an age when technology is so ingrained in everything we do, spending some time with a physical book can be a nice change of pace.
“We actually share our catalog with 29 other libraries, so we have 2.1 million items available. Of course students your age are very used to using technology, and so with our app or our website, you can find an item you want, you can put it on hold, and then you get notified when it’s here and come by and pick it up. We have a drive up window, so you can choose to have that as your pickup location… if you choose to pick it up regularly, we have a self-holds pickup shelf where you can grab it, check it out, and run.”
The library’s hours stretch from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, which gives students plenty of opportunity to show up and work on assignments, or simply hang out and read a book.
The Beloit Public Library also contains an extensive collection of card games, board games, and puzzles for those seeking a less technological way to pass the time. Their fiction selections far outnumber those at the Beloit College Library, which tends to lean more toward study and research materials.
This is not to say that the public library lacks research materials. Mitchell says, “We also have online resources… If you’re looking for a specific article, maybe you’re doing a research project based on the city of Beloit or something from the state, you can do some digging. We have online resources that are available for free with a [library] card such as Linkedin Learning… A lot of those courses that are available there, there are thousands and thousands available, but they’re based on business skills, things you’d want to improve your marketability as an employee.”
The library is currently undergoing renovations in order to add on a few expansions and make room for the installation of the exciting new interactive children’s center that will be called, according to the Beloit Public Library website, Discovery PLAYce. For families living in the area, this center will create an environment in which their children aged 0-6 are encouraged to learn through play, developing early life and literacy skills. There is an abundance of books for children of any age group throughout the library and play center so that children may naturally gain an interest in reading out of their own curiosity.
This leads into one of the best opportunities that this library has available for college students: volunteering! Many Beloit College students throughout the years have worked there, either as a volunteer or a member of staff. “There will be opportunities,” says Mitchell, “and we currently have a lot of volunteering opportunities… I know there are students studying education, or wanting to, and [Discovery PLAYce] would be a good opportunity to come up with a capstone project and use our audience, or come be a volunteer and add that as another tick on your resume.”
While it is currently closed for the ongoing construction, there is a cafe within the library where locals can go for a nice coffee and a snack while working on assignments or leisure activities.
“We started construction in August, I think it was, and the current construction is being paid for by a state grant, so we are adding additional classrooms, we are improving our technology, so our Wi-Fi speed. We are also adding telehealth rooms, so for instance if your student needs to connect with their physician, who is back home, we will have rooms that are available — you can reserve and do your appointment there. That’s also another place where you could do maybe a virtual interview, so if you’re thinking about going back home for the summer and trying to find an internship, you can stay ahead in coming here and use those rooms for that purpose.”
The Beloit Public Library places an emphasis on community service and cooperation. They are extremely well-connected with other organizations and programs, including job search.
“At Beloit Public Library, one of our specialties is partnering with other organizations in our community because there is no way we could be the experts in everything. We’re really good at finding where the information is and passing you off to either the material that has information in it or, in this case, the expert. We have a number of organizations that are housed here, or have office hours here, and during covid when everything was shut down, we were trying to think of what the community would need… we figured that job services would be key, and we immediately began speaking with the Department of Workforce Development, and by the time we opened back up, they were in our computer lab with regular office hours, and we’ve continued that more than five years now. They’re here three days a week, and you don’t need an appointment. You can make an appointment, for instance if a Spanish speaker needs to make sure that they are coming in and seeing someone they can communicate with, they can make an appointment just to make sure that the person they need is here.”
There are so many more opportunities and services that are not listed here, many of which can be found at beloitlibrary.org, by calling the library, or by making a visit to the library in person.
Featured image: Alivia Renteria’29
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