This week – National Library Week – the numbers tell the stories about how important the Homewood and Flossmoor Public Libraries are to the communities. Estimates are more than 200,000 visits were made to the libraries in 2024.
National Library Week, April 6-12, is sponsored by the American Library Association. It celebrates the valuable role libraries, librarians and library workers play in transforming lives and the important role they play in the H-F community.
Flossmoor Public Library, 1000 Sterling Ave., is celebrating the week with the theme “Grow your mind and spread a little sunshine with the Flossmoor Library.” Flossmoor residents who show their library cards this week will receive a packet of sunflower seeds “to plant, grow and spread the sunshine.”
Homewood Public Library, 17917 Dixie Highway, is sponsoring a drawing contest for library patrons of all ages who can use the theme “drawn to the library.” The entry form is available at the library or through the homewoodlibrary.org website. Prizes will be awarded by age group.
Each library gets special assist from its Friends of the Library groups, volunteers who give their time to sort donated books and run book sale fundraisers for the libraries.
“I volunteer time with the (Flossmoor) Friends because I’ve seen firsthand the contributions they have made in support of library programs and initiatives. The Friends promote the library and help engage the community,” said Debroah Hampton.
Homewood’s Friends of the Library has 71 members. Before COVID, the Friends had books sales weekly. This year, sales are being held monthly, and outdoor summer sales will resume.
“I think I started volunteering as a cashier at a book sale,” said Sandy Norton, president of the Homewood group. The library now is a special place for her.
Statistics for the last three years show how people have returned to the libraries after the COVID pandemic, and how libraries have been increasing their programs to involve more patrons.
At the Flossmoor library, the number of patrons served steadily increased from 85,584 in 2022 to 90,566 in 2023 and 99,771 in 2024. The number of items checked out followed the same trend: 123,101 in 2022, 128,851 in 2023 and 133,844 in 2024.
At the Homewood library, numbers are based on the fiscal year July 1-June 30. As the country came out of COVID, Homewood library in 2021-22 served 42,462; 78,215 in 2022-23; and 113,749 in 2023-24. The total number of materials loaned was 145,634 in 2023-24.
Homewood also recorded 12,998 successful retrievals of electronic information, and 8,090 public internet uses in 2023-24.
Colleen Waltman, executive director of the Homewood Public Library, said the 2023-24 numbers are “are all good indicators of the trend toward use of the library as a community space as well as an access point for electronic information and access to technology.”
In the last three years, Flossmoor programming jumped from 229 to 335 programs and that enabled the library to welcome 19,341 attendees in 2024. Homewood had just 141 programs in 2021-22. That jumped to 720 programs in 2023-24 serving 9,277 attendees.