Whether it is students looking for free Wi-Fi access or adults checking out a travel book or novel, in 2024 more than 500 people each day, or more than 190,000 people throughout the year, visited and utilized the Bud Werner Memorial Library in Steamboat Springs.

That visitation number, as recorded by door counters, is one of the statistics recently released in a public-friendly “highlights version” of the library’s full annual report submitted in March to the Colorado State Library.

Library Director Alysa Selby said the physical and virtual library items loaned and rechecked during 2024 topped 363,000. The overall Steamboat circulation numbers are gradually climbing back up to pre-COVID-19 pandemic highs, Selby said.

The library director said use of virtual collection continues as a major trend with magazines, movies, e-books and digitized newspapers all found online through such services as Hoopla, Kanopy, Overdrive and Flipster. For example, the library staff has digitized the Steamboat Pilot newspapers from December 1894 to January 2001.

The latest free online service through the library is the professional development option LinkedIn Learning, found at Steamboatlibrary.org/research and designed to be especially helpful for small businesses without a large training budget, Selby said. Since the library has offered LinkedIn Learning beginning in January 2024, patrons have accessed 342 courses.

LinkedIn Learning offers some 16,000 professional courses in multiple languages. Courses used by Steamboat library patrons include software training in programs such as Excel, Photoshop and InDesign; understanding artificial intelligence and learning how to use it; website building tools and programming languages; writing skills and songwriting; and business skills such as hiring, business planning, small business management, finance, cover letters and personal branding

The 2024 annual report showed more than 20,000 Steamboat library card holders served, more than 14,000 patron sessions on one of 24 free public computers and more than 44,000 use sessions of the free Wi-Fi. The library staff presented 751 library-only sponsored programming events, while 2,200 groups used one of the five meeting rooms. Kids logged 72,810 days of summer reading.

With changes in media consumption trends, the Steamboat library overall circulation statistics remain lower than the highest circulation years of 456,771 items during 2018 and 447,018 in 2019, Selby said. When the COVID-19 pandemic closures hit in 2020, circulation numbers dropped in half. But the percentage of use of electronic items in the collection soared to 49% by 2024, up from 13.5% in 2018, Selby noted.

“We’ve made a very focused and concerted effort to fund the digital collection based on how people are using the collection,” Selby said.

The mission of the library is to “promote enrichment, education and escape to everyone,” Selby noted. To continue to nurture young readers and remove barriers to library use, library leaders at the start of the year decided to eliminate replacement fees for damaged children’s books.

Library staff in 2024 completed a Community Listening Project where 54 stakeholders across various community sectors were interviewed to best understand current library needs. Results can be found at the bottom of the webpage Steamboatlibrary.org/about-us/board-trustees.

“Something we all seem to agree upon: growth is hard, and Steamboat’s sense of place and feeling of community is worth fighting for,” according to the “takeaway” of the Community Listening Project. “As people seek connection, the library, first and foremost, can offer an accessible gathering space that is community-driven, adaptable and inclusive.”

Next on the library director’s radar are trips with staff to other comparable Colorado libraries to exchange programming ideas.

“We are all trying to do as much as we can with the dollars we are given, and we are all trying to elevate our communities,” Selby said. “It is very much a sharing world to give the best access to information that we possibly can to everyone.”

In contrast to the more than $4 million annual budget for the Steamboat library or East Routt Library District, the West Routt Library District in Hayden has an annual budget of approximately $280,000, said Ana Lash, Hayden library director. Lash said visits and circulation numbers for the Hayden library continue to gradually increase, especially for summer programming.

In the small but growing town of Hayden, the library is often a gathering place for people new to town to meet people and find connections, Lash said. To facilitate that, the Hayden library is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays.

The taxing district-supported Hayden library also has the advantage of a highly visible location along U.S. Highway 40 in downtown Hayden, so its patrons also include 179 registered adults from Craig, Lash said.

Moffat County Libraries, with its main location on Green Street in Craig, is a department of the county government and also maintains small operations in Maybell and Dinosaur. The Craig library offers shorter hours with fewer morning hours and closed doors on Wednesdays, Sundays and every other Saturday.

The South Routt Library District offer two smaller locations with variable hours in Oak Creek and in Yampa.

Crystal Rodgers, assistant director for the South Routt libraries, said more than 2,500 people visited the two library branches during 2024 with more than 11,000 combined physical or virtual items loaned, not including renewals. Last year, the South Routt district served more than 2,000 library card holders; more than 1,000 patrons used one of eight free public computers; some 550 people used the library’s free Wi-Fi and 55 groups used the meeting rooms.