Durham – Durham Library Foundation publicly announced a $1.5 million Campaign for the Library on Friday, April 5. 

The Campaign kick-off was held at Southwest Regional Library, as Foundation Board members, along with Library Trustees, Friends of the Durham Library Board members, corporate and individual campaign donors celebrated the announcement and the fact that the campaign has already raised over $760,000 – more than half of the goal.

“Our Campaign theme is ‘It takes people of all stripes to make a great library,” said Ann Craver, Durham Library Foundation president. “We are encouraging everyone to ‘earn their stripes’ by supporting the library, and we certainly saw that support during the silent phase of our campaign.”
As part of the kick-off, the library unveiled a new 3M Automated Delivery System. The ADS checks in materials as patrons return them, and sorts them into separate bins, speeding the process of getting those materials back on the shelves and into the hands of library customers. Southwest Regional is the first library in North Carolina to use this sorter model.

Tammy Baggett, Durham County Library director said, “This kind of technology is standard in most world-class library systems, and it goes a long way toward meeting our patrons’ expectations of excellent customer service.”
Purchasing an automated delivery system for Main and each of the regional libraries is one of the Campaign goals. The success of the Campaign’s silent phase allowed the Foundation to fund the initial ADS while taking advantage of a deep discount from 3M. Major gifts from GlaxoSmithKline, the Friends of the Durham Library, the SunTrust Foundation, BP, Family Fare, Wells Fargo and the C.M. Herndon Foundation helped the Campaign exceed the halfway point in just over a year. The Foundation anticipates reaching the $1.5 million goal in the next two years. 

The Foundation also granted funds to provide the Main Library with a mini-makeover – another goal of the Campaign. The Main Library will undergo a major renovation in a few years, but in the meantime, new furniture and fresh paint have brightened the interior of the building. Other Campaign initiatives include:

Humanities Programming: One of the Foundation’s signature initiatives, the library’s humanities programming brings nationally recognized authors and world-class scholars to thousands of patrons each year, and is a model for other library systems around the state. Attendance at these programs continues to double and redouble. The Campaign goal is to sustain the program and help the library bring new and engaging events to the community. 

NC Collection: The North Carolina Collection is the resource for historical records of the city and county of Durham. Funding from the Campaign will allow the North Carolina Collection to acquire, catalog and store new papers and historical documents. 

The Collection: The economic downturn resulted in reductions in the collection budget. The Campaign goal is to mitigate those budget shortfalls and allow the library to maintain and build the collection.
The Foundation will promote the Campaign on its newly redesigned website, durhamlibraryfoundation.org and through displays in each library encouraging patrons to earn their stripes by donating on the website, in-person or by texting STRIPES to 20222. 

Campaign co-chairs, David Stevens, Elizabeth Townsend and Anne Wright have also planned more unconventional ways of letting the public know about the Campaign.

“We have some guerilla marketing in the works for later this spring,” said Townsend. “Our goal is to get the word out in a way that is fun, relevant and entirely appropriate for a creative community like Durham. We’ve given ourselves two years, but knowing how much this community loves its library, we would not be surprised if we reached our $1.5 million goal even sooner.”

This is the second major campaign for Durham Library Foundation. The previous Campaign for the Library, completed in 2008, raised $2.2 million. For more information about the Campaign, contact Alice Sharpe at 919-560-0193 or asharpe@dconc.gov, or visit the Foundation website, durhamlibraryfoundation.org.

The mission of Durham Library Foundation is to raise funds to provide a margin of excellence for the Durham County Library.

The mission of Durham County Library is to encourage Discovery, connect the Community and lead in Literacy. As a department of Durham County Government, the library furthers Goal 1 of the county’s Strategic Plan by enhancing cultural, educational and creative opportunities. For more information about the library, visit durhamcountylibrary.org.