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Traffic alert: Main library gets electronic sign
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Janet Loew, communications and public-relations director, shows off the new electronic event sign in front of the main library on Wick Ave.
YOUNGSTOWN
A new $18,905 electronic sign in front of the main public library, 305 Wick Ave., is a good method of announcing library events to the public at a busy intersection, the library’s communications and public-relations director said.
“It is a part of getting our message out to the public. It’s a part of letting the public know what they can come to the library for,” said Janet Loew, communications director.
“It’s such a highly visible corner. There’s a lot of traffic,” she said, noting that the sign can be seen by motorists stopped for traffic lights at Wick and Rayen and Wick and Lincoln avenues.
Her boss, Carlton Sears, the library system director, agrees with her concerning the need to promote library events.
“An informed public gets more out of the library, and this will help inform the public about our programs and services so they’ll get more out of it,” Sears said.
The sign also reinforces the public’s recognition of main library as part of a countywide system, he added. The system is known as the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
The gray sign, which also will announce library closings and provide the time and temperature, was installed earlier this month on the front lawn of the 1910 vintage main library.
The electronic crawl at the top of the sign will be activated as soon as library information technology personnel can prepare a library computer to do so, Loew said.
The library sign joins similar electronic signs along that section of Wick Avenue, which are used by Youngstown State University and by the 1919 vintage Butler Institute of American Art.
“This is the exact LED unit that the Butler’s sign contains,” Loew said of the library sign, which was purchased from and installed by the Jenkins Sign Co. of Youngstown.
“This is a very clean, plain design, and it’s similar in color to the building,” Loew said of the library’s lighted sign featuring the library’s blue, teal, orange and yellow logo.
“They’ve improved these signs so much. We can use full color. We can even use graphics on the sign,” Loew said, adding that the city has issued a permit for the 8-foot-long, 6-foot-high and 21/2-foot-wide library sign.
The sign’s electronic capabilities account for the bulk of its cost, Loew said.
“The payoff basically is that people are better informed about what’s going on and what they can participate in,” Sears added.
The sign installation was approved by the library administration without a vote of library trustees and is being paid for by tax dollars in the library’s general fund.
The library has no plans to install similar electronic crawl signs at other branches, Loew said.
Anecdotally, Loew said the Friends of the Library found they got more attendance over the years at their events when they had a sign announcing them in front of the library than when they didn’t.