Business is booming these days at the Robinson Township Library.
The library, located in the township’s Municipal Complex off Campbells Run Road, is nearing its first birthday and saw usage increase substantially during that initial year.
Sharon Helfrich, who has been the librarian for nearly 16 years, acknowledged there’s been a bit of a learning curve and some growing pains as the staff adjusted to the new location, which at 6,725-square feet is more than double the size of the former library on Church Hill Road.
“We have the same amount of staff but twice as much space,” she said. “But it’s been wonderful.”
Township residents seem to agree, at least based on the numbers that Helfrich presented to the Board of Commissioners earlier this week.
Helfrich told the board that attendance in the library eclipsed 50,000 for calendar year 2025 – a 14% increase over 2024’s numbers and a 25% increase from 2022.
The fact that the library was closed for six weeks in preparation for the May 5 move from the old location to the new one makes those 2025 numbers even more impressive, Helfrich said.
“Heaven only knows what 2026 will be bringing us,” she said, “but we’re looking forward to it.”
It’s not only general attendance that has risen. Attendance for the library’s various programs saw a 28% jump from 2024. And the number of items in circulation – both physical and electronic resources – rose from 164,413 in 2024 to 171,313. That’s a 4% increase.
Helfrich said the move gave her and her staff a chance to create the library space they’d been wanting for years. That’s because the library had been saving money – almost $300,000 – through fundraising and other means with an eye toward designing new space at some point.
“There had always been a plan,” she said. “We were going to build over here or over there, or we were going to expand the old building.”
Ultimately, when the township decided to acquire an existing building at 5440 Campbells Run Road for its new Municipal Complex, the library was included in that plan, and someone with library design expertise was hired to help create a blueprint for the new facility.
One key element the new library features is brand new shelving. “Most of the shelving we had before (in the former library) was given to us by other libraries,” Helfrich said.
The additional space not only made room for more shelving, but a dedicated children’s area – “as opposed to the little corner we used to have,” as Helfrich put it. Children’s programming is offered every weekday morning, including a Toddler Makerspace program on Mondays at 10:30 a.m. and a Baby Lapsit session on Fridays at 10:30 a.m.
The new library also has an adult makerspace area, known as The Make-ery, a reservation-only area that allows adults to use various tools and equipment, such as a 3-D printer, an engraver and an embroidery machine, to create things.
The extra space also provides room for other programming, Helfrich said, and also has enabled the library to add materials and to display more books.
“We didn’t have the space before,” she said. “We had carts everywhere and put things on the tops of shelves. Now we have the space to expand our collection.”
The new Municipal Complex location has added benefits for the library in the form of considerably more parking. And Helfrich said the library even has picked up visitors who drop by after using the recreation center at the other end of the building.
“We’ve had good crossover,” she said. “It’s been a really good relationship and it’s been bringing more people in.”
Township commissioners like what they see of the new library, and they told Helfrich and the library board as much during their April 6 meeting when they adopted a National Library Week proclamation for the week of April 19-25.
“We congratulate the library and love working with you and partnering with you on events,” said Commissioner Gina Pravlochak. “We love having all of you here.”
Board Chairman Ron Shiwarski thanked the library board members for the time they spend and noted that the library staff “is doing a great job.”
“The numbers are incredible,” he said of the attendance and circulation figures that Helfrich provided. “The future looks very bright.”
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