DFJ photo by Kolleen Taylor: Kendall Young hosted a Foam Party Wednesday night as a special activity.

It’s a warning sign.

For students, the days of summer are numbered, and the signs are all here.

The days are getting shorter, the corn is sweating, the back to school shopping has begun and the library programs are wrapping up.

It’s a sad time of year for many, but for those in the library world, there is a collective sigh of relief. One of the busiest times of year for the libraries in Iowa is starting to ease up.

Replacing the continual influx of children for the special programs, are the statistical compilations that are needed as deadlines for the annual reports to the State of Iowa and to cities and counties hit.

Library Director Ketta Lubberstedt-Artjes, said their library special programs were completed on July 18, but reading logs were due July 31. They had 253 children who registered for the reading program, but had total attendance at their summer programs of 1,069 youth.

“What we notice is in the summer is that we are busy in the morning,” said Lubberstedt-Artjes, “Instead of being busy from 10:00 a.m. to noon during the summer, when school starts we are busier in the afternoons after school.”

Fall programming at Kendall Young will begin on September 9, and will have programs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. When that happens, Luberstedt-Artjes said, “It gets louder and more chaotic.”

“We actually provide snacks after school,” she continued, “The kids are so hungry, that by providing snacks we have better attitudes and better behaviors.”

Kendall Young Library is the only library in the county that is not funded through property taxes. They manage their own snow removal and lawn care, but the city does not charge them for electricity. When Kendall Young established the means to build the library originally, he wanted the library to be a free service for Webster City. The Kendall Young library is funded through endowments, donations, and several farms, with the income from the farms providing a foundation for the non-city entity.

The Montgomery Memorial Library in Jewell is managed by Library Director Roxie Young. “We have weekly activities, we call it summer library fun,” explained Young, “This week is butter sculpting to tie into the Iowa State Fair, last week it was game week.”

Young said when they have a specific program at a set time, they average about 50 children attending. “Last week was game week and we had 73 playing the games.”

The programs when they can come any time of the day have between 10 and 20 additional participants.

Special programs are organized by most libraries to entice young people to come to the library, and learn how much fun they can have there. But the real payoff is keeping the children learning all summer long, reading new materials and reducing the brain drain of summer.

At one time, long ago, rural patrons were required to pay an additional fee to use the public library, which was considered a city institution. Over the years, there have been changes to provide funding revenues to support the libraries, allowing rural residents to support the library through their county property taxes.

Each county works with the individual library organizations to determine an equitable means to share collected dollars, usually based on a formula including both population, programming and usage.

Recently the Hamilton County supervisors recently approved the funding of the six libraries located in Ellsworth,Jewell, Stanhope, Stratford, Webster City and Williams. County funding for the libraries are collected through the county property taxes each year and split between the libraries to allow them to serve their rural customers without a charge.

It wasn’t always that way.

That funding mechanism was put in place to allow rural residents to use a library without additional fees. Today, cities without a library must contract with a community who does have library services for an agreed upon fee.

Before this was put in place, a rural resident might have been asked to pay to check out a book, or pay a monthly fee to use the library regularly.

Today, the Hamilton County libraries share in the revenues collected. In the fall of 2025, the first of two checks, 50% in the fall and 50 % in the spring will be cut. The total tax dollars collected of $88,635 is split between the libraries in each city. This is what they will get starting in the fall of 2025 for the fiscal year 2025/2026:

• Ellsworth Library: $11,522

• Montgomery Memorial: $17,357

• Stanhope Library $11,522

• Stratford Library $11,522

• Kendall Young Library: $25,190

• Williams Library : $11,522

These are not huge numbers, but they provide a huge resource for the communities they serve. And as school starts again for another year, remember the many ways you can help them provide services in the years ahead.