Retiring Guy's Digest: Wisconsin library UPDATE. Lowell Public Library is closing

(homepage screenshot)

Lowell Public Library is closing. (Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, 11/10/2019)

The library is closing over issues with funding and the difficulty of finding a director following a resignation. The village had $12,532 to offer for a part-time library director, according to Village Clerk Sandy Pocius. However, the state requires that a library director be specially certified under the law, and the amount of money available was just not enough to complete a successful search for a director with the necessary qualifications, officials determined.

I think that’s the main hang-up,” Pocius said. “There are all these requirements of what the library system says a director has to be, and the library system says we have to have a director.”

Get me rewrite. The hang-up, Sandy, is the low level of financial support, the lowest in the state in total dollars, according to the preliminary 2018 Wisconsin Public Library Service Data.

(highlihght added)

"All these requirements." (Public library certification has been a part of Wisconsin law since 1921.) The director of the Lowell Public Library needs to be certified at the Grade III level.

Lowell is located 10 miles south of Beaver Dam and 15 miles north/northwest of Watertown.

Other Dodge County communities with public libraries are highlights in orange. (Actually, most of Hartford is located in Washington County.)