Patrons can help library district by offering suggestions

Officials want a new name for the Dundee Township Public Library District, one that better reflects the community it serves

People of all ages who live within the district are invited to help officials rename it.

This week the board decided to call the East Dundee facility the Dundee Library, while the facility under construction at the Randall Oak Recreation Center is called the Randall Oaks Branch Library.

They could have renamed the district as well, but board members decided they would rather involve patrons.

“We want the people who come in here every day ... to give us the ideas and their input,” library district board president Marge Skold said. “We really want to be responsive to the community that elected us to serve them.”

The old name was coined in 1981, when voters agreed to form the district that exclusively served Dundee Township and the communities within it, library district director Roxane Bennett said.

But as surrounding towns expanded in the early 1990s, the district picked up parts of Gilberts, Rutland Township, Algonquin, Barrington Hills and Elgin.

Today, 69,338 people live in the district. The idea to change the district's name came from an interim library director two years ago who noticed the current name didn't encompass the district's coverage area and suggested officials call it something else.

As for the library district's new name, it must:

Ÿ End with the words “Public Library District.”

Ÿ Be original. Authorities will run a search to make sure nobody else is using it.

Ÿ Have a link to the library's community, geographic region, the state, a significant historic feature, or a physical feature in the surrounding area.

Ÿ Be easy to remember and say.

Ÿ Be marketable and have mass appeal.

Even if it has all of those qualities, “There is no guarantee that any particular name is going to be selected so, we're using this as an opportunity to get feedback,” Bennett said.

The district is taking submissions through March 2, and the board hopes to make a final selection at its April 9 meeting.

Email ideas to marketing and public relations director Kirstin Finneran at kfinneran@dundeelibrary.info, fax them to (847) 428-0521 or mail them to Finneran at 555 Barrington Avenue, East Dundee, 60118.