{"id":88610,"date":"2020-05-09T21:08:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T03:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/newest-library-district-gets-website\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:16:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:16:56","slug":"newest-library-district-gets-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/newest-library-district-gets-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Newest library district gets website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nycole
Nycole Eoff, left, a substitute librarian, and Rebecca Benally, branch library manager at Sunnyside Elementary School, show a map of the proposed library districts in 2019 at the school.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s youngest library district has entered the digital age with a new website.<\/p>\n

The Southwest La Plata Library District<\/a> announced its new website, developed with the help of COLibraries and the State Library, at the start of May.<\/p>\n

One of the driving motivational forces behind creating the website was the hope of helping to build a stronger sense of community, said Peter Miesler, Southwest La Plata Library District trustee. Miesler helped coordinate the creation of the website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community now owns the library, and we get a bit more interaction with the community by having a website they can go to,\u201d Miesler said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping for more community cohesion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The library district, which includes Sunnyside Library and Fort Lewis Mesa Library, was officially formed on Nov. 5, after a tight vote<\/a> on the district and a 1.5 mill property tax alongside it. The yes vote won the race 52.1% to 47.9%, or 882 yes votes to 811 no votes.<\/p>\n

The district was created because La Plata County \u2013 which had formerly provided funding for the two rural libraries \u2013 had decided to cut funding after declining revenues from oil and gas property taxes. Durango School District 9-R had helped to keep the libraries open with grant funding but that was expected to run out in June.<\/p>\n

Miesler said the school district has continued to support the libraries throughout the process and has maintained a partnership.<\/p>\n

A group of residents formed to put the question of the formation of a new library district to voters. The group hoped to preserve the services the two libraries provided the communities, including access to books, after-school programs, technology, supplemental learning opportunities, internet service and community meeting space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are striving for increased community awareness and participation,\u201d Miesler said.<\/p>\n

While the libraries currently aren\u2019t open because of the coronavirus pandemic, Miesler said they will open Monday for curbside exchange, where people can order books ahead of time to be placed in a box on the sidewalk and then return books to a separate box to be disinfected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith COVID, that\u2019s added a lot more of a push for people to connect on the internet, and the website ties into that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Currently, the Southwest La Plata Library District has community resources and updates about the 2020 Census, COVID-19 pandemic and each of the libraries at https:\/\/swlplibrarydistrict.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

lweber@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest La Plata Library District formed in November<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,155,475,638,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-education","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-library-and-museum","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88614,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610\/revisions\/88614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88610"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}