GAINING FOCUS

    Three hours to the north lies Priest River another small logging community built along the banks of the Pend Oreille River. On the way there you pass through another MIRA community, Plummer, in the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation where the burning of the mill during the training period almost prevented the team from qualifying for a grant. However, they pulled together and, in spite of the local catastrophe, met the requirements. The great distances between towns made it difficult for any of the teams to collaborate outside of their geographic area. According to Kathy Spitz, a computer consultant in Priest River and former city librarian, the original meeting was held at the River Pig Restaurant, and people from Council drove north to meet with Jim Birdsall and a large group from Priest River. Once the training began the only central place was Lewis-Clark State College about three hours to the south. Spitz helped arrange car pools of members, and they had to leave at 5 a.m. and return late in the evening on Saturday. She admitted they did not have a goal at first, except the financial reward of $15,000. Spitz was preparing to leave the library about the time that MIRA started. The library had been run by "a band of women" called the Cultus Club since the 1920's. The library is located in the city building across the hall from the police station. There is a small meeting room in back, but the lack of public meeting facilities and the need for more space helped the team decide to focus on the planning of a multi-purpose community center, which would include something for everyone. Spitz mentioned an Olympic-sized pool, a larger library, gymnasium, certified kitchen where chefs could train, and public meeting space. Considering that 60% of the school children qualify for a hot lunch and that all county services are based in Sand Point, they knew this would be difficult to sell to the local people. If they were feeling neglected and ill-served, this project might help build community commitment, and all the MIRA team seemed to have a high regard for their consultant, Jim Birdsall.

About the third training session the team decided that phase one of this project would be to improve the library and campaign for a separate library district. The library would become the anchor tenant of the future community center. Katie Krill, the current librarian, still relies on Spitz for technical assistance. I met with Krill at her birthday party in a corner of the busy, crowded library. She had worked for the University of Idaho extension services and heard about the job "when I set up my lentil pot in the hall outside the library." Although she does not have an advanced library degree, she seems to be a natural. She and the core MIRA team helped promote the library districting, which passed in November 2000 with an amazing 78% approval. The use of MIRA funds for computers, training, and raising awareness of the importance of an improved library helped pave the way for this landslide success. Using MIRA money for a match they received a library grant and now have a 56 KB frame relay connection with the Sand Point library. The e-rate program covers the cost of this, and Krill has done the complex paperwork for three years running. The Gates Foundation paid for more workstations, and now Krill feels the complexity of the whole network is a technological monster, not because it does not work but because it keeps her from the face-to-face activities that are at the core of being a librarian in a small town. She said that the networked computers helped increase library usage by 25% and that was for traditional uses such as children's story time and book circulation, not only use of the technology.