are easily identifiable. A church soup kitchen is directly
across the street from the library. In speaking with members of Middletown's large Spanish-speaking community Mr. Gallagher has
discovered that many in this population are 1111terate in their
own language as well as English. Therefore an increase in
Spanish print materials may not be the best outreach approach.
He is considering the purchase of Spanish language materials in
both audio and video formats.
To bridge the gap in another under served population the
director hired Middletown Thrall Library's first young adult
11brarian - a woman whose specialization and special interest is
in this age group between childhood and adulthood.
Specialization was stressed too when he appointed one reference
librarian to have primary responsibility for the local history
collection and another to be the in-house. computer/Internet
specialist.
There are challenges facing Middletown Thrall Library today
- keeping the budget stable, "doing more with less," integrating the Internet into the 11brary, providing more full text document
delivery, electronic interlibrary loans, resolving fee-based
services, and serving minority groups within the city. There are
more non-traditional populations today. There are more poor,
kevin gallagher