The Inside Scoop on Your Local Heights Library

To ensure that it can give the Cleveland Heights-University Heights community the best possible services in the coming years, Heights Libraries will be conducting a community survey from February 25 through March 18.

If  BWU calls you, please take the time to participate in the phone survey! If you do not receive a call, please feel free to take the survey online or in person at any of our branches. 

The Library has contracted with the Community Research Institute at Baldwin Wallace University (BWU) to conduct the survey by phone with residents of Cleveland Heights, University Heights, and selected areas of surrounding communities. Residents, library customers and non-customers alike, will be called at random, but residents who do not receive a call are encouraged to fill out the survey online at www.heightslibrary.org or on paper at any of Heights Libraries four branches.

The community survey is the follow-up to a large community study conducted by Heights Libraries in 2012. In April 2012, the Library contracted with NODIS (Northern Ohio Data and Information Service) at Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs to perform a comprehensive analysis of demographic and socioeconomic conditions, and the borrowing patterns of residents and patrons in our community.

“This is the first time the Library has undertaken such a comprehensive study of our community,” says Heights Libraries Director Nancy Levin. “We provide great service to our customers, but we can always improve, so we want to hear from our residents. What do you like? What don’t you like? We want to know.”

The NODIS report covers the Cleveland Heights-University Heights community, using the CH-UH School District boundaries. Demographic and socioeconomic data were gathered from the 2010 Census and the Census Bureau’s 2006-2010 American Community Survey. Data on patrons and borrowing were obtained from CLEVNET records and cover the year 2011 and the first quarter of 2012.

Heights Libraries received the report in July 2012, and soon after the public service managers formed the NODIS Report Action Committee to analyze the data, find actionable items, and determine what further information could and should be gathered from a related community survey to be conducted by BWU. Services provided by BWU will include designing and conducting the survey (by phone, online, and in-person), tabulating and analyzing the results, and writing a final report, which will be made available to the public.

The decision to collect and study this information was prompted by a desire to make data-driven decisions about programming, collections, services, outreach, and marketing, thereby ensuring the system’s resources are being used in the most efficient way possible to benefit the members of the community.  The timing of the study and survey coincides with the system’s strategic planning process for 2014-2015.

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The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced January 9 that Heights Libraries will be awarded the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf, a collection of books, films, and other resources designed to introduce the American public to the complex history and culture of Muslims in the United States and around the world.

Heights Libraries is one of 842 libraries in the nation to win this award, and one of only two in Cuyahoga County–Lakewood Public Library also received the award. Sam Lapides, Heights Libraries special projects coordinator, wrote the grant and is overseeing the project.  Librarians, including Adult Services Librarian Carole Wallencheck, will be designing future programming around the new collection.

“We’re looking forward to offering programs that showcase the many ways that Muslim culture has shaped and enriched civilizations across the globe” says Wallencheck. “Lectures, films, book discussions and art tours will be in the mix.”

Developed by the NEH and the American Library Association (ALA) based on the advice of scholars, librarians, and other public programming experts, the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf is intended to address both the need and desire of the American public for trustworthy and accessible resources about Muslim beliefs and practices and the cultural heritage associated with Islamic civilizations.

“This collection will give our community the opportunity to learn about different aspects of the Muslim experience and culture, including literature, poetry, history, and art,” says Lapides. “The Heights community is diverse in just about every way and truly embraces learning opportunities, so we know these new resources will be popular.”

All four branches of Heights Libraries will receive a Muslim Journeys Bookshelf set, which consists of 25 books, three films, and access for one year to the resource Oxford Islamic Studies Online.  Books will include such titles as the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissis, and The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by F.E. Peters. Films will include Prince among Slaves and Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World.

Programs are tentatively slated to start in summer or fall of 2013. Check www.heightslibrary.org for details.

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The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library is pleased to announce the appointment of its newest board member, Jeffrey Eummer. His term began in January 2013.

Eummer, who has lived in Cleveland Heights for four years with his wife and son, replaces outgoing Board President Esther Moss, who retires at the end of 2012 after a total of 14 years of service, beginning in 1999.

Eummer is currently a lab coordinator in the Chemistry Department at Ursuline College and has taught chemistry at both Lakeland Community College in Ohio and Martin University in Indiana. He has worked as a chemist for a variety of companies, including Bristol-Myers Squib in Connecticut and has also served as president of the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBChE), an organization devoted to encouraging minorities to pursue careers in chemistry and engineering.

His background in science and passion for science education is part of what inspired him to apply for a position on Heights Libraries’s board. “I’d like to be the Library’s liaison to the community, especially as it relates to STEM education—science, technology, Engineering and math,” says Eummer, adding, “With bookstores, newspapers, and other sources of information going out of business, our Library is becoming an even more crucial source of education and information for the community, adults and children alike.”

In addition to his involvement with NOBChE, he has also coached his son’s Cleveland Heights Recreation league baseball team.

Eummer was selected for the Heights Libraries board by the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education at its December 6, 2012, meeting. Ohio law requires that the local school board be the tax authority for a community’s public library, so library trustees are therefore chosen by the school board.

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