By MAUREEN PICHÉ

POTSDAM – No longer simply a repository for books, the Potsdam Public Library has evolved into a community resource center that provides space, technology and education for everyone from the bookworm to the person who’s never sent e-mail.

Library Director Patricia Musante said the library’s focus is on its patrons’ needs, and since the 2006 referendum made it a school district library, it has expanded its services to reflect a diverse community—particularly those who might not ordinarily use it. As a result, library attendance has nearly tripled from 46,000 in 1999 to 130,600 in 2010.

“We think you have to be community-based—open for them when they need you and have a place for them to meet,” Musante said. “We’re much more service-oriented.”

“This is not your grandparents’—or your parents’—library,” said Chip Morris, library trustee. “There’s nothing wrong with just coming in and taking a book out, but you can do so much more.”

Using Federal American Recovery & Reinvestment Act funding, the library recently opened the Public Computer Center and brought on director René Austin and trainer Robert Watkin to offer technological assistance, employment information, job coaching and more. The Cleveland Community Center in the library’s lower level has several rooms of various sizes available for public meeting places, and was renovated using a donation from the F.W. Cleveland Foundation.

“We’re trying to close the digital divide,” Musante said. “Not everyone has access to computers.”

“We help people become computer literate,” Watkin said. “There are people who come to us with no computer experience.”

He gave as an example a 45-year-old who suddenly finds himself forced to use a computer at work for the first time in his career.

“I helped an 85-year-old man set up a Facebook account,” Austin added.

The library also used stimulus funds to provide the Universal Class, an online school accessible from any North Country Library System library web page. The over 500 go-at-your-own pace, non-credit courses range from business to computers to the arts. Patrons are welcome to use one of the 20 laptop computers at the center to take the classes and receive initial assistance from Watkin or Austin.

“Here’s an opportunity, with a free library card, anybody can take free courses,” Morris said. “Businesses can set up free customer service training for their staff. There are so many possibilities.”

Counselors from the One Stop Career Center in Canton are available for personal job counseling every Tuesday and Thursday, and are offering job preparation classes each week.

Free Microsoft certification classes are offered once a week at the computer center with an instructor from the ATTAIN Lab in Ogdensburg.

In the near future, Musante said video conferencing will be available to businesses, service groups, or anyone who wants to avoid travel.

“We have a two-headed mission,” Watkin said. “Spreading technology in the community and helping people who are unemployed.”

The library is also evolving in the way patrons can access reading material.

Tumble Talking Books, provided by the Friends of the Potsdam Public Library, is an online collection of full-length audio books with unlimited remote access that people can listen to from any computer with an internet connection. You don’t need any special software or listening devices and you can listen to as many books as many times as you like. The children’s equivalent, TumbleBook e-books, provides talking picture books online. Both can be accessed from the library’s website.

And soon, through the North Country Library System, patrons will be able to download e-books and audio books and read/listen to them on portable devices.

“The library has to change, it has to evolve and reflect the world,” Morris said. “If it was the same library as it was 17 years ago, there would be no reason for young people today to use it.”

The point of all this growth, said Musante, is to be a hub for the community—a place where people come to “get in the loop” and make connections. For instance, people who apply for help at the neighborhood center, also in the library’s lower level, or who take English as a Second Language classes are referred to the library if one of the programs would help them.

“This is a crossroads where everybody meets,” Musante said. “We’re in a position to make all the connections—to cut down on duplication and expose resources.”