Numbers have no opinion. They do not have personal agendas. They will not lose their job. They will not face re-election. They are cold, hard representations of the truth.

Numbers show discrepancies and make it easy to compare and contrast. Within the Fontana Regional Library System numbers speak volumes — about how book collections are directly tied to usage rates, about how successful fund-raising campaigns to build new libraries have been.

Numbers also show that the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva is the only library in the Fontana Regional System — which includes Jackson, Macon and Swain counties — where user rates have declined. What they don’t show is why.

“A lot of it has to do with the fact that we had such an ugly vicious fight about the situation over the past several years,” said Sylva librarian Michael Cartwright.

The “situation” is that of attempting to build a new library, and it has been an emotional battle of desires, accusations and needs — is Cartwright a good librarian, should a new library have been built in conjunction with Southwestern Community College while the offer was on the table, and now, is the selected library site in Jackson Plaza actually downtown? These are old questions that have no concrete answers, just a swarm of surrounding opinions.

Earlier this year, contending groups tried to move on, take what they had to work with and do what they could to accomplish the one goal most everyone seemed to agree on — Sylva needs a new library. The ceiling leaks, there is no room to expand the book collection, the single meeting room holds 30 at best, and there is little parking in the immediate vicinity.

The process has been slow. Fund raising is proving difficult.

“You’ve got to have tangible things that people can look at,” said Mary Otto Selzer, the new president of the Friends of the Jackson County Library organization.

There is no approved site design and county commissioners have yet to commit to a dollar figure they are willing to spend on the new library.

Fontana Regional employees have said that the negativity within the press and the community doesn’t help. Now they’re doing what they can to change it.

Johnny can’t read

Between the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 budget years, the Sylva library saw usage drop by approximately 7,500 patrons. This figure could be misleading, however, as it is not calculated by counting separate individuals coming to the library. Rather door counters register bodies in and bodies out. The same person could come to the library three times a day and be counted as three separate users. It would be more accurate to say that trips to the library decreased by 8 percent.

“I don’t know (why),” Cartwright said. “Part of it is the facility, part is the general trend in American society today.”

Libraries with their stacks and racks of books are becoming antiquated as younger generations tend to turn toward technology to answer their questions. It’s easier to Google “elephants” from the bedroom laptop than it is to head down to the library and pick up an encyclopedia. What libraries must and can offer is a degree of personalization to that information search and more of a guarantee that the information provided is correct.

“You hopefully get some cheerful assistance, possibly some innovate ways of finding information that you want,” said Dottie Brunette, librarian at Albert-Carlton Library in Cashiers. “It’s the human touch.”

However, it appears that at least in Jackson County, at both the Sylva and Cashiers libraries, reference materials are the least circulated. True crime, mystery and Christian romance novels top out Sylva’s list of most popular books. Similarly, mystery, romance and how-to books are most popular in Cashiers.

In catering to the community’s needs, Cashiers has one of the largest periodicals budget in the system, second only to the Franklin-based Macon County Library, which is the largest in the Fontana system. Two investment magazines — Value Line and Morning Star — make up about one third of the library’s periodicals budget, but help make the library a go to place for financial information.

“One of the roles in any public library is to support not just the business community, but the interests of the community and economics is certainly part of it,” Brunette said.

Books on tape are Sylva’s most used non-book item; however, library staff has found that books on CD are being checked out four times more often. Consequently, the library is slowly converting its collection.

“The technology is changing and we’re trying to keep up with it,” Cartwright said.

The popularity of books on tape may speak to one of the Jackson County library’s other determining usage factors — 30 percent of the county’s population doesn’t finish high school and 45 percent is functionally illiterate, according to state statistics. If you can’t read it, maybe someone can read it to you.

This fact most likely plays into the county’s slow rise in library card holders. To date, the Sylva library has seen only a 1.07-percent increase in card holders over last year. Cashiers has risen only 1.38 percent. Comparatively speaking, card holders in Franklin increased 2.53 percent, in Highlands 3.89 percent, in Bryson City 5 percent and at the Nantahala Library card holders grew a whopping 23.23 percent.

As a county, Jackson also comes in on the low end of the scale in terms of the percentage of the total population holding library cards — only 45 percent, versus Swain’s 62 percent and Macon’s 69 percent.

It has been argued that libraries at local higher education institutions Western Carolina University and Southwestern Community College play into low public library registration; however, community memberships at Western number only 260. Still, it is likely that many university professors and employees — who are included in Jackson’s total population figures —use WCU’s Hunter Library exclusively.

Marketing services

Libraries these days aren’t all about tea and cookies and storytime. Like anything else, they are a business competing for customers.

“My gut reaction is that somehow we have to make the community aware of what we can do,” Cartwright said.

Getting the message out about what they offer is a key component to success.

“I can make people’s lives better and there has to be a way to make people realize that,” Cartwright said.

However, there are several aspects to cover. Monday afternoon a couple stopped in Jackson Office and Art Supply located just outside downtown Sylva looking for a legal form to help sell a car — the library would have been a great place to go, not that anybody told them that. Last week, a roaming tourist wandered down Main Street looking for the library — he’d walked right past it, the bushes outside the building having nearly grown up to cover the Jackson County Public Library name.

“I’ll say that when I was in library school I didn’t pay much attention to the marketing component,” Cartwright said.

Rather than increase advertising budgets — a meager $180 in Bryson City, $300 in Sylva and $337 in Franklin — librarians are pounding the pavement to drum up new customers and keep old ones coming back.

Cashiers librarian Burnette speaks at local churches, rotary clubs and Humane Society meetings. She puts up flyers at other community gathering places to advertise upcoming library events. From there publicity comes by word of mouth.

“This in many ways is a closer-knit community,” Burnette said.

Burnette also plugs any program being held at the library, whether it’s a quilters’ group making use of the library meeting room or a library sponsored meet-the-author event, and writes a column in the Cashiers Chronicle every week that helps reinforce her position as part of the community.

A little help from Friends

However, Burnette has one of the strongest Friends of the Library organizations around to provide support for the library, regular program attendance and financial contributions. The Cashiers Friends group registers 353 members, second in size only to Macon County’s 474-member organization. Sylva has 142 members, Bryson City 109.

The strength of the Cashiers group is something Burnette attributes to the town’s can-do and will-do attitude.

“The southern end of Jackson County, at least within my lifetime frame of reference, has not been highly served,” Burnette said.

For example, the Glenville/Cashiers rescue squad was started on its own, and the Highlands/Cashiers Hospital grew out of local need.

“The people down here figured out that if they wanted it – they went for it,” Burnette said.

The same philosophy carried over to the Cashiers library, which back in the 80s was run entirely by volunteers. The community wanted something bigger and better. By 1987, county commissioners had allocated land for the library to be built, but the community raised monies for furniture and fixtures.

“So yes there are deep pockets here and they are willing to give for something that they want,” Burnette said.

Since then loyalty has helped the Cashiers’ Friends group grow.

“Everyone here is very pro-library,” said Ethan Staats, president of the Cashiers Friends of the Library group.

Roberta Swank, president of the Macon County Friends of the Library group, echoed that sentiment. The Friends group has been in place for 35 years. An all-volunteer army keeps the Friends’ bookstore open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, manages a Web site and publicizes library events.

“We are a retirement community and we are so fortunate to have people with different backgrounds,” Swank said.

Staying active within the community and branching out to become involved with other organizations opens up doors to find members who are needed to fill specific spots within the Friends group.

Sylva’s Friends of the Library has done much the same following the resignation of Friends president Linda Young. The remainder of Young’s term is being served by Mary Otto Selzer, a former private equity investor for General Electric.

As her first task as president, Selzer began looking at best practices from comparably sized libraries around the region.

“My mindset is when you start a program of any kind, look around and see who has done this really well and learn from their experience rather than reinventing the wheel,” Selzer said.

When it came to fund raising, Selzer found that before any public campaign could be successful, a financial commitment was needed from local government, as well as a site and a design. For now, all the Sylva Friends group has to work with is a site — and one that groups such as Build Our Library Downtown have lambasted for its location outside of downtown proper.

But without a financial commitment from local government, library fundraisers most likely will not be able to raise matching monies. Grant issuers want to know how much local financial support exists.

“We would say nothing, and I think that would pretty much guarantee how much we would get in grants,” Selzer said.

So far the Friends group has raised just more than $14,000 for a new library. Meanwhile Cashiers’ group has raised $211,000 of its $300,000 goal for library expansion and Macon Friends have raised $300,000 of their $1.5 million mark.

Jackson commissioners plan to discuss capital allocations in January at the start of their budgeting cycle. Until then, the Friends will continue raising funds for what is at best an idea.

Getting with the program

In Cashiers, the Friends group also plays a part in selecting library programming, which helps bring people to the library.

“All the members of the Friends in Cashiers are permanent residents so we kind of have a finger on the pulse of the public and know what people might be interested in,” Staats said. “We’re not going to give a seminar on surfboarding.”

The Albert-Carlton library averaged 32 participants per adult program last year versus Sylva’s nine. In addition to the Friends’ support for such programs, Burnette cited the library’s pleasant space, and large meeting room as primary draws for the community. The meeting room is one of few within the community, Staats said.

As for Sylva’s lack of program attendance, it’s almost a matter of the chicken and the egg.

“I think they’re not used to coming because there’s not many programs,” Burnette said.

It’s not as though the Sylva library hasn’t tried. Together We Read programs with Western Carolina University English professor and author Newt Smith and with naturalist and author George Ellison haven’t drawn crowds.

“Hardly anybody showed up,” Cartwright said.

A kids show with a traveling storyteller and musician which was supposed to be a library fundraiser ended up costing the library money to put on because, again, no one showed up.

Part of the problem, Cartwright said, is that potential program participants know what they’re getting into — the library’s meeting room is divided into half with cubicle partitions, one side is for meetings, the other is make-shift office space. The room has no windows, seats are a random collection of small couches, office and ancient plastic molded chairs. With 30 people in the room it’s uncomfortably crowded.

“I think it’s more the facility than it is anything else,” Cartwright said.

This past year, children’s librarian Elizabeth Jenkins outsourced some of her summer reading programs, taking them down to Mark Watson Park, located behind the old courthouse. The park has ample parking, a playground, grassy areas to sit.

Enrollment in the summer reading program was up this year 13 percent with 512 kids, despite the fact that the number of programs decreased by 29 percent from 51 to 36. Programs at outreach locations like Mark Watson were better attended than those held at the library.

System-wide enrollment, certificates of completion, juvenile/young adult materials circulated, total summer reading programs offered and attendance all were down.