McIntosh Memorial Library More Than Fills Its Role as Viroqua's Community Center

Viroqua library use more than doubles since ’01. (Vernon County Broadcaster, 3/7/2012)

Excerpt: A 3-year-old participates in Twilight Time on a Tuesday evening. A retiree reads the daily newspaper in a comfortable arm chair. A father and his child check out books on CD and music CDs for a road trip. Teens check out DVDs for a marathon movie night. 

These are just a few examples of the daily activity at Viroqua’s McIntosh Memorial Library. 

Trina Erickson, library director, recently completed and the library board approved, the 2011 annual report outlining the happenings at the library. 

The annual report, which is submitted to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, includes such information as the annual public service hours for the library, the number of items in the library collection, the number of registered borrowers, the number of people who take part in programs offered by the library and circulation numbers. 

Erickson said circulation has increased 137 percent since 2001. Ten years ago circulation was 63,556 and in 2011 it was 151,237. “By far we have one of the most active libraries as far as checkouts go [compared to] communities roughly the same size as Viroqua.”