A new statewide program called “Snapshot Day: One Day in the Life of Alabama Public Libraries” provided a glimpse into the daily workings of the Chilton-Clanton Public Library on Tuesday, Sept. 27.

Snapshot Day is a project created by the Alabama Public Library Service to demonstrate the importance of Alabama’s public libraries with statistics, photographs and patron feedback from each library.

APLS posted a “Snapshot Tally Sheet” online to help libraries keep track of their numbers on Snapshot Day. The categories are: number of people who walked through the door, number of people helped with job-related issues, number of people helped with school-related issues, number of questions answered, total amount of items checked out, number of children who attended a program, number of adults who attended a program and number of people who used a computer.

Kelly Easterling, director of Chilton-Clanton Public Library, said 253 people came through the door on Tuesday.

“The patron count was the highest it’s been in a week,” Easterling said. “We usually have about 1,500 to 2,000 patrons a week.”

Easterling said the adult program on Tuesday happened to be a lecture from Dr. Julie Hedgepeth Williams on her book titled “Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama, 1910.”

“Everybody really enjoyed it,” he said. “We had 17 people attend the adult lecture.”

The children’s program was the library’s weekly story hour at 10 a.m., and five children attended.

“It just happened that Tuesday, we had these programs going on,” Easterling said. “All that worked out for the best for us.”

According to Easterling, 250 items were checked out, 59 people used the Internet, three people were helped with job-related issues, two people were helped with school-related issues and nine questions were answered.

A complete list of Snapshot activities and results will be available soon at Chiltonclantonpubliclibrary.org.

Easterling said he has to send a list to APLS, which will compile and publish the results from all Alabama public libraries.

“I’d like to see what other libraries do on a daily basis,” Easterling said. “(It will) give us an idea on where we stand.”

Chilton-Clanton Public Library’s next event is an “Observe the Moon” night on Saturday, Oct. 8.

It is an international event, Easterling said, and the library received a mini-grant from NASA for materials including a telescope, a tripod, binoculars and related children’s books.

“It was a nice little addition to our library,” Easterling said, adding that “Observe the Moon” is free and open to the public.