Written by Ruth Leopold

Special thanks to Dixie Spiegel

Part One – “O Pioneers!”

Carolina Meadows welcomed its first residents in 1985 and those people proved to be pioneers, pioneers who were determined to make this fledging retirement community a resounding success. They gathered in each other’s homes to celebrate Thanksgiving and winter holidays as a neighborhood. They furnished the Carolina Meadows club center kitchen with pots and pans from their own kitchens to launch community dining. They formed a Residents Association so they would have a voice in how Carolina Meadows evolved, and as part of this evolution they resolved to start a library to enrich the lives of all residents, present and future, who came to Carolina Meadows.

The pioneer group met and hatched a library funding plan They held yard sales to purchase the shelves and supplies needed to create a library; they donated books from their own collections to fill the shelves. Thus, a library was born and located on the second floor of the club center in a room designed for it in the original plans for Carolina Meadows.

As Carolina Meadows grew with new residents, so did the library’s book collection. By 1993, it had outgrown the space originally designated for it. The club center was being enlarged in 1993 and the library was moved to its present location just off the lobby.

Fast forward to the year 2000. By this time the library collection had acquired 800 videos, 200 audiotapes, over 7,000 hardcover books, 1500 paperbacks, numerous periodicals and enough dedicated volunteers to staff the library six days a week. All of this was funded by an annual budget allocation from the Residents Association, by book sales and by donations of books from people living at Carolina Meadows. The “Pioneers” saw their library dream well and truly launched.

Part Two – Evolving

Time and tides wait for no one, and neither do advances in technology. By 2019 it was apparent that the Carolina Meadows original library circulation and catalog system was not able to meet the needs of today’s library. If a library volunteer searched the computer to identify a book missing from a shelf, the computer could identify the book as “lost”. However, the computer could not generate a list of lost books! The name, author and catalog numbers of withdrawn items had to be entered by hand into an Excel spreadsheet. The system was simply inadequate.

Moreover, with age, this circulation and cataloging system had become more and more cranky, developing glitches and snafus which demanded more and more attention from the Carolina Meadows IT Department. After a while the techies grew to loathe the system. Clearly it was time for a change.

Enter the library’s new operations manager, Dixie Spiegel, and Anne Kotch, a professional librarian and the Book Fair manager. As a first step they decided to visit other retirement community libraries in the area to see what library systems were being used and to evaluate how well they worked. They began with Galloway Ridge, a retirement community about 25 minutes south of Carolina Meadows. Galloway’s system worked so smoothly that Dixie and Ann decided they needed to look no further. This new system had been developed by “OPALS”, a niche company serving schools and church libraries. The cost for this system was $300 per year which included support versus Carolina Meadows old system which cost $500 per year with no support.

Dixie and Ann learned how to use every part of the new system. They then wrote and rewrote directions for CM library’s Coordinators, the leaders of the volunteer teams who perform all the tasks that allow a library to function. Coordinators then trained all the volunteers who check books in and out of the library, all who shelve books, volunteers who catalog new acquisitions, and who perform other tasks to keep the library running smoothly. This training went on for six to eight hours per week for several weeks.

Then the actual transfer from the old to the new system began. First, all of the books checked out by Carolina Meadows residents under the old system had to be returned to the library. Residents understood the necessity for this and cooperated beautifully. Library volunteers only had to chase down 20 books before closing the library in the latter half of August. To keep residents from suffering “book withdrawal symptoms,” library volunteers put the Library’s collection of mass-market paperbacks on a cart in the club center lobby labeled “Books to Take and Go.” All the books quickly went.

CM’s Technology Department was very helpful in installing the new computer system. The electronic transfer of the old catalog from the old system to the new system took just a few hours. However, “Murphy’s Law” – “If something can go wrong it will,” proved to be accurate. There was a large hiccup and 3,000 books didn’t transfer from the old system. True to the spirit of CM, a team of volunteers worked for several weeks to change the barcodes of these books and apply new circulation labels.

Glitches aside, the library volunteers think the new computer system is wonderful. They can look up all sorts of data: the status of a book, books that don’t circulate, books that are overdue, large print books, duplicate books, reserve requests for books etc. etc. All these data can be printed when necessary, no more hand copying. In addition, residents of Carolina Meadows can request a password from the library and check the list of books they have out and the due dates. They can also make reservations for a book by computer and see where they are in the reservation queue.

The Library is currently expanding the collection of large print books for residents with vision issues and putting out two large print books per week. The Book Collection Committee is making a concerted effort to increase the holdings of non-fiction books. The DVD Committee is pouring through hundreds of donated DVDs and purchasing new DVDs to keep our DVD collection current and to fill in the gaps of past classics. Overall, the library puts out 52 books a month; 22 to 25 are brand new and the rest are donated. Proceeds from the two Book Fairs in 2022 added nearly $7,000 to the library’s budget.

Since its founding the library has always been a vital part of Carolina Meadows. Now, with this update, the library is better than ever. The library “pioneers” would be very proud.