Building the beginnings of a beautiful partnership.(public/ community college joint use library)

ABSTRACT

The authors describe the process leading to, and the outcome of, their partnership to build and operate a 76,000 square foot public/ community college joint use library. Located in Westminster, Colorado, the College Hill Library serves a population of approximately 70,000 Westminster residents and 6,000 Front Range Community College faculty and staff. The partnership began in 1994 to investigate the feasibility of building the facility, which opened in April 1998 and continues to be successful today. The authors provide information on the main points of the Intergovernmental Agreement to build and operate the facility and relate their experiences during the planning, construction, and initial year of operation of the library. They discuss issues relating to combining staff, automation systems, and collections as well as special challenges in publicizing the library to the community. An update on the current state of the partnership is provided by the current co-directors of the library.

INTRODUCTION

On April 7, 1998, the College Hill Library opened its doors to the public for the first time. This one library facility would serve as the central library for two agencies: the City of Westminster, Colorado, a suburban city of 100,000 located ten miles from Denver, Colorado; and the Westminster campus of Front Range Community College (FRCC), the largest campus of the largest community college in Colorado. Front Range Community College is one of several community colleges making up the Colorado Community College System. The Colorado Community College System serves more than 117,000 students statewide. Front Range Community College serves more than 23,000 students. The community colleges were established to provide two-year programs and degrees for students. (1)

Hopes were high, on Grand Opening day, that the new building would meet the needs of both communities in a way that two, smaller separate buildings would not have been able to do. Several years of working together had established the beginnings of a partnership between the two libraries that would come together in this building, a partnership that could lead to further expansion of library services for students and public library users alike. But the project also had its risks.

Few joint academic/public libraries existed anywhere in the country at the time, and some that had been attempted were later abandoned. The two agencies had many obstacles to overcome, such as different missions, fiscal calendars, sources of funding, policies, personnel rules, and computer systems. So why did the City of Westminster and Front Range Community College undertake such a venture? And, seven years on, has this partnership been a success? We will try to answer these questions from the point of view of the library's customers and staff, and the larger community, as well as from our (Kathy Sullivan and Warren Taylor) own as its administrators for its first six years of operation, with an added update on the last nine months from the two current co-directors of the library, Mary Grace Barrick and Roger Stelk.

When our two parent organizations asked us, as library directors, to evaluate the feasibility of building a joint library, we were intrigued, excited, and a more than a little nervous. Both the college and the city were in desperate need of more library space. The city was then operating two small (approximately 5,000 square feet each) buildings to serve a community that was approaching 100,000 people, with no facility located in the area where most of the population now resided. City officials and library staff had spent several years developing plans to build a new library within a mile of the community college campus, near the geographic center of Westminster. The college had a facilities master plan indicating the need for 45,000 square feet and had already started planning to build a new facility within its main campus building. The funds needed to build a new college library would be provided from the State of Colorado general fund, based on this approved facilities master plan. Funding was limited for both agencies, and neither had the wherewithal to build a library that would serve as the focal point of information and reading for its community.

The idea of a possible joint facility originated with Dr. Tom Gonzales, then FRCC president, and Bill Christopher, then Westminster city manager. The city and college had enjoyed a long relationship of cooperation on mutually beneficial enterprises, for example, building a Performing Arts Center and developing courses in golf course management in conjunction with the city golf courses. FRCC administrators knew of an existing joint use library in Broward County, Florida, that seemed to be working well. (2) Library staff were asked to evaluate the idea to see whether it could work in Westminster. The staff…