Library Master Plan

The Celina Public Library Master Plan is almost here! In consultation with the Library Board, Parks Board, Community Leaders, Community Stakeholders and City/Library staff the City has embarked on a journey to find out what the priorities are in a future Library. The final product of our efforts will be a plan that outlines best practices and the next steps that will enhance Celina’s Public Library system. This Master Plan seeks to be comprehensive, actionable, forward thinking and develops creative space planning recommendations to allow the library to respond to community needs, desires, and goals from now through the year 2040!

The vision of the Celina Public Library is to be a premier participant in the development of an enriched, informed, and connected community that lives, grows, works, and plays in a quality hometown environment.

The Master Plan recommends spaces that allow the Celina Public Library to meet the standards and community needs for space, collection, study rooms and technology based on data and extensive community input gathered throughout the process.

Steps of the Planning Process

Prior to beginning the master plan process, library and city staff and consultants toured Texas libraries to evaluate best practices and excellent services at new and renovated libraries across the region. This gathering of information was invaluable to the planning process, as staff provided pictures and images of aspirational services, systems, furniture, and layouts that would benefit the community if integrated into the Celina Public Library system. Lessons learned during this process were used to generate images for community input as well as develop a common architectural vocabulary for the consulting team.

Ten (10) tours were planned and embarked upon including:
• Austin Public Library
• Seguin Public Library
• Buda Public Library
• San Marcos Public Library
• John and Judy Gay Library
• Arlington Downtown Library
• Lewisville Library
• Frisco Public Library (new and old)
• Euless Public Library
• Wylie Public Library

Stakeholder Input & Community Focus Groups

The City and consulting team sought to include as much of the community as possible. To accomplish this goal, the team:
• Created vision boards and “Celina Dollars” to allow the community to set priorities at the Celina Christmas on the Square event. Each attendee was given (5) $100 bills to put in the envelop under the library space/service that they felt was most important to include in a new library.
• Vision boards were reused at different story times and library programs.
• Attended a senior luncheon with the vison boards.
• Presented to the Library and Parks Boards with the vision boards.
• Allow city and library staff to participate in voting on the vision boards.

Participants were generous in providing their time for this exercise. Over 420 citizens participated in person, which resulted in the following top ten images:

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LIBRARY SURVEY RESULTS

In Depth Interviews

Interviews were conducted with stakeholders and other groups to gather information about the community’s needs and roles that the Celina Public Library should fulfill as the City Grows. These groups included:
• City and Library Staff
• Library Board
• Parks Board
• Citizens of Celina
• Celina Chamber of Commerce
• Celina ISD
• Celina Home School Groups

City Council input will be gathered during a future council meeting

Online Survey

720 Design in collaboration with PolCo/National Research Center worked with the library to develop an online survey that would work to expand the community participation in the planning process. The survey was limited to twelve questions with one “open ended question” to allow participants an opportunity to comment.

The Library and City Marketing team advertised the survey online on the City and Library Facebook accounts, in city staff newsletters, during library programs, at the library service desk, in community newsletters, and many of our board members shared the survey with friends and family. Over 560 community members participated in the survey between January 9th and February 10th. The results of the survey are viewable in the appendix section of the draft master plan, which will be viewable below in May.

Next Steps and Ways To Stay Involved

So far, well over 1,200 Celina residents have participated in the library master planning process, but there are still ways to give your input! The draft Library Master Plan will be available below in May, and the link below is a survey where you can provide your comments regarding the draft plan. These comments will be reviewed and incorporated into the master plan as appropriate. If there is anything you think we forgot to include, or there is a mistake please let us know using this link – this feedback will only be used for the Library Master Plan. We encourage you to look at the plan and tell us what you think!

The Consultant and City will then present the research findings and draft Library Master Plan to the City Council in June. Please come and support the Library Master Plan!