Goals / Mission

The Weber County Library Development Fund (WCLDF) was “formed in 1975 to promote, sponsor, develop, expand, and support the Weber County Library System (WCLS) and its educational, scientific, and charitable purposes, objectives and programs.”

Overall Goals:

The WCLDF has three basic goals:

• Enhance capital projects with the dynamic infrastructure necessary to produce multi-faceted programs and venues;
• Underwrite the startup of educational programs and value-added service enhancements, focused on target populations with special needs; e.g., children, seniors, and those with language barriers, limited literacy,
disabilities, etc; and,
• Identify and address opportunities for the Library’s improved stewardship of public and private resources.

The Library System’s primary goal is to provide access to a rich amalgamation of relevant information resources, programs, and services, helping people to make meaningful decisions in their lives, and participate as full-fledged members of our democratic society. The Library’s secondary goal is to serve as the social glue that binds people together in a sense of “community”; that is, to manage resources and programs so users will find civic cohesion and social solidarity in something other than a common race, a common religion, or a common culture.

Ultimately, these two goals go to the heart of the Library mission: to empower each member of the community with a sense of self-worth, and the confidence necessary to undertake and fulfill a unique life-plan. That is, to achieve life’s ultimate goal: fulfillment/happiness.

While the “pursuit of happiness” is often discussed in relation to the Declaration of Independence (“. . . unalienable Rights . . . Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”), the term “happiness” is often misunderstood.

The Greek term, eudaimonia, translates into English as “happiness,” but not without a real loss of meaning. Something like “fulfillment” would, in some ways, be a better term, because happiness is the work of a lifetime, differing in significant ways from satisfaction, pleasure, contentment, or other expressions of mood, which can be fleeting and superficial. Happiness is a state of being, a deep sense of having all of the things that make life fulfilling.

Few psychological principles are more accepted than the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The images people have of their future, of what they expect to happen; what they are afraid might happen; and most powerfully, what they would prefer to have happen; all subtly, or not so subtly, influence their current decisions and actions.  When a person changes their mental image of the future, in a way that matters to them, they will begin to do things differently in the present. In this way, the future creates the present!

The WCLDF helps the Library achieve its goal of providing a welcoming, neutral place, where individuals connect with ideas, creating a passion for learning and understanding that empowers people to envision a rich and meaningful future for themselves, and those they love. Their understanding enables them to make decisions, in the here and now, which lead to self-fulfillment – to happiness.

In recognition of their dedication to excellence, the Weber County Library Staff received the Freedom Foundation’s “We Believe in Heroes Award,” the Library Board of Trustees, received the Utah Heritage Foundation’s “Stewardship Award,” and Friends of the Weber County Library received the Utah Library Association’s “Community Service Award.” Youth services’ programs, sponsored and hosted by the Library System, have received the American Library Association’s “Best of Show Award,” four out of the last five years, in recognition of the high-quality educational content of their entertaining literacy and summer reading programs.