In Goldthwaite, a small, but vibrant town of approximately 1,700 people in central Texas, Jennie Trent Dew Library (JTDL) fills many voids in a community that is missing essential nonprofit and civic organizations like a local community center and a parks and recreation department.
“We’re a rural county. We like to say that we have more goats and sheep than we have people,” JTDL director Susan Lindsey says, with a laugh. “We serve quite a large area with very few people living in it.”
“We have no mental health clinics or anything (like that) in our community,” Lindsey continues. “For the population that we serve, the only programming pretty much comes through here. If you aren’t involved in the school or a church organization, the library is really the only resource.”
That’s why JTDL was an ideal candidate for the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities grant, an initiative to assist small and rural libraries in providing greater accessibility of facilities, services, and programs for patrons with disabilities. To be eligible for the grant, the library must serve a populations less than 25,000 and be located at least five miles from an urbanized area. JTDL received its first round of grant funding in May of 2023 and was awarded a second round in 2024.
Creating an accessible space
Since 2014, JTDL has been housed in an 1890s-era building with a rock facade and a front door that was difficult for many patrons to open. JTDL used some of its LTC funds to purchase an automatic door opener.
“The [old] door was heavy,” Lindsey explains. “People—especially those in wheelchairs or with small children—were having a lot of trouble accessing the building.”
Lindsey says that the grant funding is also being used to support more inclusive arts programming like its Thursday Club, a weekly arts and crafts and socializing afternoon for people with intellectual disabilities. JTDL plans to work with the attendees of this weekly program and with community leaders to expand this service and increase accessibility of materials used such as adding a wheelchair-accessible pottery wheel and kiln.
The Thursday Club has proved to be a transformational experience for the group of men who are weekly regulars.
“It’s kind of given them an identity and an ability to be an integral part of who we are as a county,” Lindsey says. “They would have all just been at home, isolated, if they didn’t have the opportunity to come here. That’s what brings me the most joy; this group of men—they’re a highlight of my week.”
Lindsey says that she finds comfort and pride in the fact that JTDL is amongst a large community of libraries providing these services.
“I was so pleased to see that we aren’t alone in this,” she says. “Even though we’re from a little county, there are other places that are doing the same thing. It just warms my heart that the public library is a catalyst for these kinds of programs.”
The American Library Association Libraries Transforming Communities grants offer more than $7 million to small and rural libraries to increase the accessibility of facilities, services and programs to better serve people with disabilities. Jennie Trent Dew Library is one of 240 libraries who received funding. Of the selected libraries, 65% serve communities of less than 5,000 people. See the full list of libraries.
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Bill Furbee is a freelance writer living in Kentucky.
Photo: Discover Goldthwaite
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