Customization Curveballs
This library added new tables specifically so patrons "no longer have to crawl on the floor" for an outlet.
What is the Kennebunk Free Library?
This library is only 2100 square feet on two floors so they had to find just the right privacy pod to fit in their space (plus, they added outdoor outlets to allow patrons to use the library's resources beyond the four walls)
What is Liberty Library?
This library recruited three regular remote workers (who'd never met each other) to lead a new "remote workers network," and kicked it off with a wine & cheese meet-and-greet.
What is the Unity Public Library?
A state employee who used this library so often to work remotely told library staff her colleagues were jealous of her view of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.
What is the Buck Memorial Library?
This number of libraries participated in the RWTL initiative.
What is 40?
This library installed a Mamava nursing pod and ordered parenting books in Spanish and Portuguese to serve the working families in its community.
What is the Portland Public Library?
This library's contractor went quiet for weeks - it turns out, he was in Papua, New Guinea!
Before this library's remote work space was even finished, a feature in the town's own bi-monthly newsletter was already turning heads: three interested residents banded together to form the beginnings of a brand-new "Remote Worker Collaborative."
What is the Bowdoinham Public Library?
This library used its grant as a launchpad into an entirely new focus: business support. including new entrepreneurial books, a board vote to expand support for local businesses, and NDEC classes on things like building a Facebook page for your business.
What is the Readfield Library?
This is the total amount awarded for the "Remote Work through Libraries" initiative.
What is 1.7 million dollars?
On this island, the town didn't just approve a new patio for the library. Residents held a special town meeting and voted unanimously to donate the property outright.
What is the Chase Emerson MEmorial Library?
After being told for months that repairs were complete but still waiting on a state inspection sign-off, this library finally enlisted their state senator's office for help (spoiler: they had a resolution within 10 days).
What is the Thomaston Public Library?
This library got itself listed on the statewide Maine Association of Nonprofits' Shared Workspace Finder as a durable way to keep reaching new remote workers.
What is the D.A. Hurd Library?
FEMA visited this library to see if its resources could be used for disaster-response deployment. The upgraded wifi and space were deemed to exceed FEMA's high standards.
What is the Vassalboro Library?
These two Departments of the State of Maine worked together on the RWTL Initiative.
What are the Maine State Library and the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development?
Instead of one fixed workstation, this library handed out portable WiFi hotspot kits (which turned out to be very useful during weather-related power outages)!
What is the Caribou Public Library?
This island library's building permit hit a snag when two/three zoning appeals board memebers had to recuse themselves over a conflict of interest. Their building committee chair happened to be an architect who helped get them to a resolution.
What is the Chebeague Island Library?
This library's former director presented the whole project on a panel at the Maine Library Association Conference, spreading the idea to librarians statewide.
What is the Carver Memorial Library?
This library went beyond just hosting digital-skills classes when it hired its own in-house digital technologist (with funding secured to keep her on staff through 2026 and perhaps beyond!)
What is the Mercer Shaw Public Library?
Final reports for the RWTL Initiative are due on this day..
What is September 30th, 2026?
Patrons at this library were already using the WiFi from their cars in the parking lot, so the library built an outdoor pavilion and posted a sign inviting them to come sit down and use the outlets.
What is Soldiers Memorial Library?
This library was building the first locally-sourced cross-laminated timber structure in the state and hit a wall when they discovered there's only one producer of New England-sourced mass timber in the world, causing nearly two months of total inactivity on site.
What is the Jesup Memorial Library?
Word about this riverside library's project traveled far enough that one pod user drove in from a different county specifically to use the space for a job interview.
What is the Patten Free Library?
This library's shared workspace - with a separate, coded entrance - has hosted a remarkably wide range of groups: a church, remotely-taught yoga classes, National Guard interviews, and a cadre of journalists covering an international sled dog race.
What is the Fort Kent Public Library?
The original source of this funding was which federal stimulus package?
What is ARPA?