During its work session yesterday, the City Council heard an update from the Waco-McLennan County Library on new technology and programs at the library.
The library is now offering Kanopy and Kanopy Kids, a digital streaming service that contains thousands of movies, shows and documentaries. Library Director Roberto Zapata says the shift to digital lending materials reflects a larger trend.
"DVD sales have dropped for over 16 years now and prices have gone up," Zapata said. "Streaming is how people access video now."
He said that in the March alone, Kanopy was used over 2000 times.
The library has also added new literacy and early learning stations across at each of the 4 library branches. The systems are pre-loaded with over 70 educational programs and offer both English and Spanish programming.
"These computers are not connected to the internet, which a lot of our parents like and they take their kids specifically to the library because they’re not connected to the internet," he said.
Zapata said the systems help promote early literacy, one of the key missions of the library.
To achieve that mission, the library will also be hosting the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge, with incentives for reading achievements. Zapata said this will also help prevent the “summer slide” many kids experience from two months off school.
The library is also working on a new app.
"The app basically puts together events, it puts together our collection, it puts together hours," Zapata said. "What we’re excited about is that you can use this to check out materials."
He said the app will allow more streamlined self checkout options while in the library, disabling the RFID tag and marking the book “checked out” in the system.
"A lot of people prefer not to go up to one of our staff or they’re in a hurry," he said. "They can do it on their phone and it's fast and easy to do."
Zapata said the library is planning for a May first launch.
