FY27 Proposed Budget

Recent Accomplishments:

• Compared to other urban public libraries in the state, the Iowa City Public Library has the highest collection use per capita and visits per capita. Our onsite programming attendance is higher than any other library aside from Des Moines. • More than 547,000 people visited our building last year, a 3.9% increase from FY24; almost 30,000 people attended a program. • Last year, we saw over 52,000 uses of our public computers and another 133,000 Wi-Fi sessions. • We expanded the accessibility of our services through offering a new world languages collection, a portable hearing loop for our meeting spaces to increase audible accessibility, and a weekly Summer Reading Program series designed for individuals who are neurodivergent or experience intellectual or developmental abilities. • With several community partners, we established a Seed Library for the public to take and share seed packets to grow their own plants. The seeds in the library were provided through individual and partnership donations. • Established a regularly scheduled outreach program at CommUnity Food Pantry to provide information about the library and sign people up for cards. • To increase the safety and security of library systems, IT staff developed a cybersecurity incident response (IR) plan and engaged a local cybersecurity firm to review the plan.

Upcoming Challenges: •

Library building has seen two decades of use, resulting in the need for the replacement of essential systems and a review of current spaces to address evolving community needs. • Digital collections come with high costs and strict licensing requirements; balancing our mission to provide broad access to these materials while maintaining fiscal responsibility is challenging. • Navigating efforts to meet increasing community social service needs, including financial, mental, and physical well-being of our patrons, while sustaining and expanding the core library offerings our community expects. • Responding to the continued politization of public library materials, programs, and services. 153