MCLS Announces Closure of Mall Outreach Stop

ZANESVILLE, OH – All good things must come to an end and the Muskingum County Library System has announced the closure of their Mall Outreach Stop on April 17th.

MCLS opened the Mall Outreach Stop in September of 2024 to help fill the gaps in services due to the renovation of the John McIntire Library.

Sean Fennell, the Marketing and Community Relations Director with the MCLS, says the Mall Stop initially only operated a few days a week but quickly saw more of a need with the closure of the Mini Mac.

“To kind of help serve our patrons who are used to going down town or maybe up on the North end and needed a little bit more service up there. A lot of our other folks are going down to the South Branch library.” Fennell said. “So we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to offer services to as many of our patrons as possible while services were just a little bit reduced at the John McIntire Library. Of course, we could not have done that without the incredible partnership that the Colony Square Mall has provided for us.”

Fennell says while the Mall Location might be closing up, they’ll be adding the Mall to their list of stops for the new and improved Bookmobile.

He also took some time to reminisce on the Mall Stop and how it was able to spark new ideas for Library Staff.

“We see people stumbling upon Library Services here at the Mall that they may not have accessed or noticed, if we hadn’t been here.” Fennell said. “Now we find that to be true everywhere we go, which is wonderful, everywhere we go we are able to impact new people in our community and let them know about Library Services and so that is, again, a hallmark of the Outreach department. So it makes a lot of sense that this was an outreach stop for us, because it really did meet people where they’re at, outside of normal Library Spaces, bringing the Library to where you are.”

Fennell also announced that the Family Reading Festival that is normally hosted around this time of the year has been moved to the Fall.

But don’t fear, Summer Reading Kick off Parties will begin very soon and will feature the Bookmobile, so patrons can come to check out the Library’s new wheels.