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Who We Are
The Kanawha County Public Library is the largest public library system in West Virginia. We have nearly 100,000 card holders and while the vast majority of our library system patrons are from Kanawha and Putnam Counties, residents from all 55 West Virginia counties are represented in the cardholder data base.
There are more than 600,000 items in the library collection; 350,000 of those are housed at the Main Library with the remainder distributed among our 9 branch libraries and Mobile Library.
Patron visits to all libraries in the system total nearly 1 million per year and more than 1 million library items circulate in a year's time. These include books, videos, CDs, and DVDs.
Almost 100 percent of the library's services are FREE to the public.
What We Do
The development of Kanawha County Public Library's services is guided by the goals set in our vision and mission statements and the long range plan, which is reviewed at regular intervals and may be adjusted to reflect changing needs and opportunities.
We envision the Kanawha County Public Library as the people's premier source of information in a community where learning and reading are revered and being well informed is valued.
back to page menuThe mission of the Kanawha County Public Library system is:
- To provide free and equal access to information on subjects of a patron's own choosing.
- To provide citizens with job training and career development information that will prepare them for a competitive job market
- To enrich individual and family lives through satisfying educational, recreational and cultural experiences
- To enable patrons to access new information technology
- To provide opportunities for lifelong learning
- To serve as the center of community life
- To use available resources efficiently
- To seek additional resources
In accordance with the library's bylaws, policies and procedures have been established to manage the operation of our services and a code of patron behaviour has been adopted to inform users of KCPL's services what is expected of them.
Linda G. Wright Award for Excellence in Library Service
Kanawha County Public Library is proud to announce that Susan Saylor is the recipient of the 2012 Linda G. Wright Award. Susan was presented with the award at the annual Staff Development Day event held on February 29.
The Linda G. Wright Award for Excellence in Library Service is an individual achievement award which recognizes a KCPL staff member who has contributed to outstanding customer service as well as showing exceptional leadership, initiative, and willingness to share his/her skills with others in the organization during the past year. KCPL is dedicated to providing excellent public service in a community where learning and reading are revered and being well informed is valued.
Join us in congratulating Susan for receiving this well deserved award.
Snapshot Day 2012
On Tuesday, February 14, KCPL, along with libraries across the state, participated in the West Virginia Library Commission's Library Snapshot Day, an initiative designed to illustrate the impact that libraries have on their communities.
During that day, staff members at our libraries kept statistics and took photos of how the public used our services. Here are some highlights:
- Throughout the system, almost 3500 people visited our libraries.
- Our customers checked out nearly 4000 items, including 222 downloadable items from WVDeli.
- Patrons placed nearly 600 holds on items in our collection.
- We issued 27 library cards to new patrons.
- We answered 235 reference questions.
- Our customers requested 5 items via interlibrary loan, and we sent 24 items to other libraries for their patrons to use.
- Users logged 725 sessions on our public computers, using them for a total of 317.32 hours.