Public library adapts to community needs during recession

By Johnny Dickerson
Edited by Scott Waggoner

Two mannequins in business dress stand on the third floor of the Richland County Public Library's main branch on Assembly Street. Behind them the sunset reflects off Main Street's office buildings.

The scene serves as a fitting image for how the library has changed as its patrons' needs also have changed.

Yes, it has over a million books, and people check them out, along with CDs and videos. But the evolving library can be found here on the third floor at the new Jobs Center.

Outside the library, Willey Mincey, 33, takes a break and a drag from a cigarette. He lost his job as call center manager for the S.C. Troopers Association last year.

Now on the job hunt, he's taking advantage of the library to perfect his resume and improve his typing skills, since the telephone sales representative job is wants at Verizon Wireless requires typing 40 words a minute.

"The library has programs on their computers that teach you how to type, and it's brought my typing speed up to at least 35 words per minute," he says.

"The next time I come up here it should be up to 40."

Back on the third floor, the mannequins stand silently – he wearing a black blazer and slacks over a white button-down shirt with a blue and black striped tie, and she wearing a simple and conservative woman's grey pantsuit paired with a pearl necklace.

The point is to tell people how to dress properly for a job interview.

A few steps away is a wooden desk with a plant beside it – a generic boss's office setup that might be found in any business. It's for practicing mock job interviews.

Jennifer Wishart is the boss. As a job-readiness trainer, she conducts the mock interviews, taking notes and providing feedback.

She asks traditional interview questions – she might ask you to describe your ability to work as a team member – and behavioral questions, such as describe a time when you were faced with problems or stresses that tested your coping skills.

Sometimes she'll ask questions specific to a certain industry a job hunter is trying to get into.

"We had a young lady who came for an interview, and she called and said they asked some of the same questions at the real interview," Wishart said.

One in five of those using the library's computers is looking a job, said Diane Luccy, who runs the Jobs Center.

"The library evolves to meet community needs," she said.

The center has evolved from a single table of tip sheets for job hunters to the entire section of the third floor today, paid for by a $438,000 grant from the Knight Foundation in June. The librarians mark down each time they help someone with a Jobs Center-related activity, which happens about 500 times a month.

The American Library Association says that when unemployment is up, Americans go to libraries to find information about future employment or educational opportunities. For the Richland County Public Library system, overall usage has increased 30 percent over the past two years, the teeth of the recession.

This year's ALA State of America's Libraries report also says more Americans are using the library in general, with a decade-long trend of increased library usage accelerating during the bad economy.