Approximately 90-93% of the library’s annual budget is funded through a voter-approved property levy; the remainder comes from donations, endowed funds, and grants. The percentage of levy funds that supports our library is in the ballpark of the same percentage that funds SJI and Lopez libraries.

Orcas Island Library District serves all who live, work, go to school, or own property on Orcas Island. Anyone visiting the island who would like to access library resources must pay for a visitor or non-resident card.

What Does the Library Budget Support

Space

In 2024, the library hosted 107,760 patron visits, up from 95,610 in 2023. (In 2019 the Library hosted 118,749 patron visits for a pre-COVID comparison.)

The library circulation desk is open 51 hours per week. With regular evening programs (e.g., Game Night, Knit Night, Friday Night Writes), the library is often open to patrons 60 hours per week. Meeting rooms are available 98 hours per week because the Community Room may be accessed when the circulation desk is closed.

We provide four meeting rooms, which are booked an average of 300 times per month.

Stuff

The Library offers thousands of books, DVDs, and digital resources. In 2024, the library circulated 82,712 physical items and 33,566 e-books/audiobooks. In the first five months of 2025, the library circulated items an average of 7,049 times each month. Generally speaking, that breaks down in the following way:

• 34% of those items (2,396) were in our juvenile section

• 2.6% (183) were young adult

• 36.4% (2,566) were adult

• 27% were DVDs (1,903)

The library also regularly circulates wi-fi hotspots, board games, State Park passes, magazines, and other useful items.

Services

Library staff provide tech support, reading recommendations, an average of 15 programs per month, research assistance, connect patrons to social services, and ensure the library is clean, in good working order, and responsive to patrons' needs.

We fix the copier, help kids learn how to use telephones, locate lost items, take thousands of requests for items each year, assist with room scheduling, and provide on-site library services at local schools, remote book drops, and community organizations and businesses.

Staff

Our collection, programs, and services are all possible because of our 12 staff who amount to 7.73 full-time equivalents (FTE) a week. We have dedicated librarians for children’s collections and programs, teen collections and programs, adult collections and programs, and patron and staff technology support. We rely on dedicated, cherished volunteers who provide an additional 40 hours a week to keep our operations strong.

Staff add new board games and scores of books each month, maintain the landscape and cleanliness of the building, offer four book groups, connect with community partners, and provide at least a dozen programs for kids, teens, and adults every month.

They offer guidance on printing documents and connecting to online resources, navigating patron relationships, looking for lost items, connecting patrons with social services, updating patron records, and figuring out room bookings. They also connect kids with parents and vice versa after school, providing a space for youth to develop their independence skills.

Finally, we have less visible work: applying for grants, complying with grants, sorting out time sheets, processing patron requests, meeting with each other to resolve issues that arise, meeting with the Board of Trustees, coordinating with volunteers, paying vendors, fixing toilets, reporting out to patrons and other interested parties, professional development, collaborating with Friends of Orcas Island Library, ordering library supplies, accounting, cataloging books, fixing broken board games, covering shifts at the circulation desk for each other when the need arises, and more.