Morning Edition; Jeanna Gongkley

The Joplin Public Library has a new director, but you might do a double take when you see her familiar face in a new role at the library. Gina Gawkely previously worked at the Joplin Public Library for 15 years, where she was the children's librarian for 12 years, before leaving in 2016 to take a position as the director of the McDonald's County Library System. In 2018, she then took a management position at the Springfield Green County Library District. I spoke with Gina inside of her office at the Joplin Public Library. Thank you for joining us on a morning edition. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. You know many in our community here in Southwest Missouri are already familiar with you after working at the Joplin Public Library for 15 years. So what's it like to be back as the director of the library? It's great. I'm really enjoying it. I'm getting to see a lot of familiar faces that I haven't seen for three or four years, so that that's really nice in itself. There are still a lot of staff members who work at the library currently who were there when I was there four years ago. It has been a little bit overwhelming just getting my footing and figuring out where I need to start

and what I need to work on and getting all the information that I need. I'm the type of person who likes to know exactly what I need to be doing and where I need to be starting and it's been a little bit different. I was expecting that of course. I have some experience being a new director from McDonald County, so I wasn't expecting that, but I'm eager to get this to better grasp on things and get there. I have to ask the question because if I got a job in my hometown being the director and doing what I'd love to do in radio, I would have to ask, has there been a pinch of me moments? And having this job as the director, you walk in the front door, you run the place now. Yeah, I keep describing it to people as it feels very surreal to be in here because you probably know that I was at the library when the design process was happening for this library. So I got to see it on paper and sort of mock up, but to actually be in the space, like walk in the space and just be here, it's pretty amazing. It definitely feels surreal to me every day.

Yeah, the library for somebody who's not been to the Japanese library. It's incredibly modern building. When I think library, when I come into this building, it's not what I think of as the library. Yeah, and it was designed that way intentionally. We had visioning sessions with community members and different leaders in the community and just our Patreon in general. And we asked them what they wanted from a library. And so we really tried to incorporate that into the look and feel of the library as well. So the meeting room spaces were very important to people. And you know, when you're building a new space, you want to make sure that you have enough, hopefully you have enough room to grow and expand. And I feel like this building does, this allows us to do that in the future. And it can adjust, it can be flexible and adjust with us. I come to the library for many things, usually a story time or one of those things you guys have on set. Explore and play. Explore and play, like when I bring my two kids, my five-year-old and two-year-old to explore and play, like the community that I don't see on every day basis, all of them are an explore and play. You know, there is always, seems even today, there's something going on in one of the meeting rooms, like a scholastic book sale.

Yeah, they're here training people, training librarians and support staff on how to run their book fairs. So I helped them set up earlier this morning and was asking them questions about what they were here. They say they do a couple trainings a year here at the library and it's just a nice space for them. But yeah, there's something happening here every day. The Children's Department does a really great job with their programming and it's just a nice space for people to come into. Yeah, it feels like community, really community-oriented. I'm not saying that because I'm interviewing you or I live down in the streets. It really does, it feels inviting. And that's the intention. So when we join, when we become part of the Family Place Library initiative, that's one of the focuses is to be a community hub. And that's what we hope it feels like to people, when people that come in. And not only, you know, check out our books and our materials, but also make connections with other families and other people that they might eventually become friends with too. And those connections are important. We're part of social infrastructure. And as that, you know, we want to, we want to be welcoming to people. This is, this is one of the places you can come in Joplin where you don't have to buy something and you can just be here and anyone can be here.

So what are some of your priorities as director or some areas of need that you've identified? Sure. So, you know, we are a nonprofit. I think money is always on the minds of people when they're operating any sort of business, but especially a nonprofit. We have limited funding, so we are funded with property tax money. And so we only get a certain amount each year. So the budget currently is what I'm, when I'm working on. That's what I'm trying to get together immediately because our budget year runs from November 1 to October 31st. And so that we have to get a budget in place very, very quickly. So that's the first, that's the first order of business. So your money's fixed. You guys can't have fundraisers. We, well, we can have some fundraisers, but, but the majority of our money is a fixed sort of annual revenue stream and that comes from people's property taxes. And people, and it's from the people who live inside of the city limits of Joplin. We can do other fund raising measures. We can do some things to help with that, but those are not necessarily long-term solutions to our funding issues. But we are looking at some of those things like, for instance, we started

where a passport acceptance agency now. And so we are generating some revenue with that. That was a good decision, I think, on the part of the previous director and the people in the library. But yeah, there, we're ever looking for other, other types of funding to help us out as well. So I can come here and make an appointment and get a passport here. You can. Or the application and submit the paperwork. Yeah, well, yeah, you'll have your application and we'll, we'll go through it and submit it with you. Yeah. You brought up an earlier in the interview that this library is meant to be like a center of the city. And ironically, I don't know if you, I'm sure you knew of this, but the motto is, at the center of it all, Joplin Public Library. Yeah, that's our slogan. That's that's what we're supposed to be all about. And that's, you know, one of my priorities as well is making sure that the staff feel that the public is aware of that and that people in our community just really know that's what the library is. And we are, like, we're located in more centrally located in Joplin now. When we used to be downtown, that was a great area to be in. But the idea to move in this area was that, you know, we would be more centrally located to people. And we should be

focusing on that. So yeah, I love that slogan. I think it's a great thing to get behind. On that note, there are a lot of people who will never visit this library. Never visit any library because we know, you know, every phone, we can search anything, we can read books on our phone, we can use a Kindle, we can use even the overdrive app for free books or content on our TV or through Ruku, like I use at home. So speaking to those people who never visit the library, they drive past it every day here at 19th. Was 20th in Connecticut? Yes. 20th in Connecticut, they drive by, they see it, they never stop. Why are libraries still relevant here today? Yeah, there's a famous quote, I think by, I think it's by Neil Gaiman in that you can, you can find anything on the internet, but you can really find that answer, that one answer at the library, like a librarian can find that for you. And you can, you can find anything on Google, you can find, but really, you can find so much more that you might not even be able to focus on the one thing that you really needed. And so libraries can do that, but also we have things like, I feel like the library has something

for everybody. Not only do we have really great materials like books and DVDs and all sorts of things like that, but we also have, we have gallery space. So for instance, we have a gallery in art gallery in a couple of different locations. We have the local history area of the library. If you're researching your history, your family history, the history of your house, like that's a great place to come in as well. We have access to like, periodicals and newspapers and journals on it. You know, we get the newspaper every day. You don't have to subscribe to that. You can come in here. Also, it's just a really nice space to meet and connect with people. Our meeting room space is good. Our study room space is really, really great. And there's just, I feel like there really is something for everyone at the library. I would just encourage people to come in and just take a look around and take a walk around because I think you'd be hard pressed to get out of here and not think like, oh, why could use that resource or I could do this or I could do that. So one of the things too is the three-year printers, like there's always people in that room.

Yeah, the maker space. Yeah, yeah. So the maker space is an interesting feature of the library as well. And right now, it's closed for some maintenance and servicing. And then for September, we're taking appointments only currently. We're working on some different staffing ideas for that space currently, but we're hoping to get it back. Functioning how it was previously when we had a staff member in there. But yeah, it's so there's a 3D printer. There's the laser cutter machine. There's some digital media conversion equipment as well. So yeah, it's a really interesting space too. One of the things that I liked about this library when I came in is that there are snack and drink machines. You know, because when I walk into a library, I don't think of snack and drink machines, but I know that some people, especially when I was a college student, I stayed many hours at the library when I lived in California. And this just a step ahead, when I went to the library there, I'd have to leave and come back. But the library, whoever develops it made it very evident that it's a place to come and stay.

Yes, we hope it's a destination for people. And we hope people are staying here for, you know, longer periods of time. And we're happy to provide that vending and that vending space for people to be in as well. And we would have some outdoor space that people can take advantage of as well. We have a really pretty outdoor area to the east of the library. We have an outdoor courtyard, where people can sit and have their snacks as well. And just the outside features of the library are really cool too, like the sculpture that we have out here. And I guess it's, I call it the front of the library, but you can't see it from the street very well. Yeah, there's just some really neat outdoor features as well. We'll end on this. Whether somebody comes to the library just once, or they come every day multiple times a day, your time as director, what do you want it to represent to somebody that will never meet you? But you know, they're going to see you work every day. You know, you work with the staff or new projects you come up with the library. When somebody leaves, how can you convey, you know what I mean? I want them to feel like they have had really great customer service when they use the library. That's one of my really top priorities

as well is just, you know, people are doing really great job. The staff is doing a great job here already, but I feel like there are always ways that we can focus on customer service and helping people find what they need. And so I want people to leave knowing that they got what they needed from the library. And maybe even more than they need it, because a lot of people don't even know what libraries can do for them. So that's what I hope. Thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you. Chin and Gawkely, director of the Joplin Public Library.