The director hopes for more collaboration with local entities; welcomes new ideas

The Dolores Public Library is developing its next strategic plan and wants your help.

A survey open until the end of the month will assess community ideas on programming and local integration with four open-ended questions.

“Hopefully we get some answers that are things we hadn’t thought of and are totally new ideas,” said Sean Gantt, director of the library.

The new strategic plan will outline the next three to five years of the library’s future.

The questions are:

As Gantt looks to the future of the library, he hopes for greater collaboration with federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, nonprofits like Dolores River Boating Advocates and Trout Unlimited, and the District local school.

“We just want to be good neighbors and associate with all the other entities here,” he said.

The library aspires to fill the gaps in the community, as it has done by curating a hanging space in its glass-walled backroom to function as an art gallery, he said.

This room overlooks the scenic Dolores River Trail, which the city helped clear and enrich.

“I would love to see us do more programs directly related to the river because we could literally have a program in the community hall, go out and watch whatever we talk about in the river,” he said.

Gantt replaced Diana Donohue as Director in April 2020.

“That transition took a while for people to know or even understand, because when I came in, we were still at the curb, and all the craziness was happening,” he said.

Prior to working at the Dolores Public Library, he served as director of education at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.

Amid growing local and national conversations about coworking spaces, Gantt reminds the community that libraries are a “natural place” for remote working.

“This back room, you can sit next to a fireplace watching the river and typing on your laptop,” he said.

Gantt said he is always ready to chat with the community and welcomes everyone to his office. He can be contacted at [email protected].

“We want to be more than just a place where people come to check out books and DVDs, we really want to be a community hub in the Dolores area and in the larger Montezuma County community,” he said. declared.