Odon Winkelpleck Library expands
Jan. 2—ODON — A northern Daviess County library is now a lot bigger. For decades the Odon Winkelpleck Public Library provided services for residents in Odon and Madison Township. Starting this year, the library is now providing services to Steele, Van Buren, Elmore and Bogard Townships.
"Those townships are all considered part of the North Daviess school system, and we will be serving all of those," said Odon Winkelpleck Library Executive Director Susan Graber. "This expansion makes sense because our mission statement has been for us to provide library services for the North Daviess community. That was the driving point behind it and we felt we were at a good point to do it."
Graber says the change, adding those townships to the library's district, will give residents in those communities not just access to the library in Odon but to library services that stretch across the state.
"It gives access to all library services," she said. "They can get a card for free and that gives them access to items from 130 libraries that are part of the Evergreen Consortium. It also includes access to the Indiana Digital Library which connects with another 200 libraries. When you add those up that will give people a lot of things they can get access to."
Currently the Odon Winkelpleck Library is open Tuesday through Saturday. Those hours will be expanding soon, but officials are not yet ready to announce those changes.
"Those are in our plans," said Graber. "We don't know exactly when that is going to happen. We will be open more and will be providing more programing for people of all ages. There will also be more access to our meeting room."
One thing that will not be happening is any physical expansion of the library.
"We can't do that," said Graber. "We are totally landlocked at our current location. There are no plans for moving or expanding the physical facility."
The expansion is just getting started but Graber says that so far it appears to be well-received.
"So far, all of the reaction we have had has been positive," she said. "We have had some people come in to renew their cards that lived outside of Madison Township and they were very happy they no longer have to pay for a card."
The expansion is paid for by a small additional property tax assessment in the new townships.
Library officials say that as they begin to expand offerings and operations, they see a big year ahead in 2024.
"I think it is going to be an exciting year as we work through this," said Graber. "We will be updating our services, be open more hours, adding more staff, planning more programs and offering more to the people."
