- The tiny town of 10 sleep, Wyoming has just 247 residents, but it has one of the best small libraries in the nation, and now it's won a national medal To prove it, I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is Wyoming Conoco by one measure.

The US has more than 17,000 public libraries.

Virtually all of them, bigger than the one in 10 sleep, Wyoming, but just five public libraries.

Coast to coast this year received what's recognized as the top public library service award in the nation.

And yes, this year the 10 sleep library is one of them.

Wyoming Law stipulates only that every county seat have a public library in was county.

The library in Warland fulfills that obligation, meaning there's no legal requirement for the 10 sleep branch to exist at all, but exist.

It does aided by an unconventional partnership with another public entity in was county and guided by a dynamic leader, Karen Jean Funk.

But something that drew some attention statewide and honestly nationally was the library was the recipient of an award.

Yes.

A national award.

What was it?

- Institute of Museum and Library Service.

Award.

It's a national award and it, this year, five libraries and five museums across the United States received this award.

And we were one - Five libraries across the nation.

Got this.

- Yes.

- Any of 'em smaller than this one?

- No, I don't think so.

- I would doubt it.

- This is the first public library in the state of Wyoming to receive this award.

- So this was something that you were craving and all your career you'd hope to get and you were nominating yourself and campaigning for it or no?

- No.

- How did it come about?

- You know, we've heard about it.

We've read about different libraries around that have those kinds of, of awards.

We received a phone call, oh, it was the fall of 2024, and they said, we want to know you've been nominated by Congresswoman Harriet Hagman, and would you accept this nomination?

And we said, of course.

Thank you.

And we were shocked, you know, and then we were supposed to learn about who won in the spring of 25, and that didn't quite happen.

So we kind of put it on the back burner and we paid no attention.

We figured we didn't win.

Yeah.

And finally in the fall of 25, we got a phone call that said, we want you to know you are a winner.

You aren't just nominated, you're not just in the running.

You are, you are a winner.

And with that, we went, that's great.

And they said, but keep it under your hat because we're not ready to formally announce this.

And so we, we squealed and we had a great time and, and kept it amongst ourselves until the spring of 2026 when they finally had their official announcement in February.

- So months go by between months.

- Months.

- The various announcements, because here we are, we're in April sitting here, middle of April of 2026, and the first were notified of the possibility months and months ago.

- Right.

- What led Representative Hagerman to think of you?

Do you know?

- We have no idea.

You know, she has many people that work for her.

We don't know if we've presented, you know, some serviceing here for them that they were here for.

I kind of, you know, I look back and I think, oh, there was a gal here and I wonder if she was part of that.

And I wonder if that that caused them to think about us more.

- You get the notification and there's a, some sort of a physical object you believe at some point might be presented.

It's a medal, right?

- Yeah.

It is a national medal.

- Yeah.

- It's quite an honor.

We, we are still trying to get our grasp around that, you know?

Yeah.

So this, this award will be presented to us in Washington DC We will travel there and we will receive that.

And they have not yet come up with a date.

They told us later this summer, we will - Go there some months away.

I'd have a feeling months away if that's the following.

The typical timeline.

Yes.

But there's some money involved here.

Right.

- Right.

There's $10,000 will be awarded to our library.

- Yes.

It's gotta be just great news.

- It is.

It'll enhance our community.

- Yeah.

- With programming and education.

- Yeah.

'cause what we're finding is we've arrived here this morning, we're setting up, you gave us a nice tour and it's the case with any public library now.

Of course.

But there's just so much going on here.

You look around, there's art, there are, there are a lot of books.

It's impressive still.

Yes, thank you.

And, but you've got art and you've got videos and you've got toys and games and computers and blood pressure cuffs and lots of things that fit into this under the umbrella of the community center that any decent library has to be now.

Right.

- That's true.

We also have a, a wide variety of people that come through it during the summer.

Tourists, people just vacationing.

Yeah.

We have rock climbers that are up in the 10 sleep canyon using that.

And they come to our library and they, they are looking for a nice place to do some work.

They use our wifi.

Our wifi is available 24 7 and it's good wifi.

It's fast.

And we really cater to them, I think in the summertime as they go on with their education.

Or we've had people teaching yoga on the lawn.

You know, we've had one person did a deposition in the library.

Lots of different things happen with these people from out of town.

And it's interesting where they come from and, and all their skills and, and they donate to us.

- Well, speaking of travel and tourism, you said that your library, and I get, I didn't know this, but most libraries now, a place where you can get a state park pass.

You, - You can get a state park pass and all you do is come in and check it out and you can put it in your window and go to the state park and return it and there's no charge.

- Yeah.

So in a, a town of 10 sleep population 200 and some, you've sort of become the catchall for lots of different services and facilities.

Where can we do this?

The library.

- Right.

You know, I think that's really important.

Libraries have more from just being a place with books.

Yeah.

We don't, we aren't just a place with books.

You know, people want to, they find us for education, they find us for entertainment, they find us for information, they find us for direction.

You know, we'll help somebody anyway we can.

- Yeah.

You've been in libraries for a good long while now.

Correct?

I - Started working part-time in 1997.

In this library.

- In this library, - Yes.

- And I, the library training, - I was basically chain trained on the job as things went on.

I see.

Yeah.

As we needed a branch manager.

I had the skills for that.

And as we moved on to needing a library director, we went through several library directors and finally they felt that I had the experience that could make it as a library director - In the top job now.

- Yeah.

And I've been doing that since 2010 - Was Ake county in the county seat is Warland.

- Right.

- That's where you work a lot of the time.

- Three days a week.

I'm over in Warland.

It's really nice that I live in tent sleep and that I can travel back - And - Forth.

See and that be in touch with both libraries all the time.

- Yeah.

One of the, one of the beautiful parts of Wyoming.

- Yes.

- Tent sleep here at the base of the bighorns by state law.

As I understand it, every county has to have a public library.

And it has to, it's true.

It's located in the county seat.

So in counties where there's more than one municipality, which there is 10 sleeps a town, there's a mayor.

- Right.

- You don't, 10 sleep doesn't have to have a library by law, - By law.

That's true.

- But you do.

And there are other places in Wyoming, other municipalities that are bigger than 10 sleep, but no longer have it.

Or the library is under threat because of funding situations.

We'll just put it that way.

I mean, the state has changed property tax collection in the past couple of years and many, many county entities looking around.

We don't have the funding that we used to.

What's gonna have to be cut back.

A lot of times the library is something that comes to mind.

- This is true, - This is true.

Those funding challenges are real, but intensely and outside the box.

Partnership with the local school district and arrangement in place for decades helps shield the small library from the county's potential funding chopping block.

The 10 sleep public library also is the 10 sleep school library.

You found a way to make it work.

And part of the way it works is this partnership that you've got with the school district.

What does that work exactly?

But you were the Waske County Library Director is one of the people that works in the library.

A school district employee or what's the no - Breakdown there?

No, the, the school district, waske County School District number two and the Waske County commissioners have an agreement.

I'm not part of the agreement.

I don't, I don't chime in on it.

So they've made a arrangement where the school pays the county X amount of dollars.

We put that into our, our fund.

They put it into our budget.

And that's part of how we are, how, how we are financed.

- The library, the building that we're in is owned by the county.

- Yes.

This is a very, this is probably the most different part of it, is that this building is, is maintained by the county.

It's owned by the county and it's sitting on school property.

Hmm.

- So the school's nearby here?

- Yeah.

It's about two blocks away.

- So - Yeah.

- School kids, school classes coming over for an activity.

They can, they can walk.

- Oh yeah.

They come with their teachers.

Yeah.

They're not, you know, loose in the community or anything during school time.

They come with their teachers.

We have a, A grade school comes weekly.

The high school can come whenever they feel like it.

Usually they'll set us up a time and we can train them on how to use their library card or their account.

If they're doing reference work, we'll pull some books for them ahead of time.

You know, 'cause they have limited time to come to the library.

Yeah.

- I'm guessing that the school library is a little better than it might have been if this partnership didn't exist and that the public library might be a little better because the partnership exists.

You support each other.

- I do think so.

And I, you know, our books compliment each other so that we have an enough variety for the school and the public to read or to discover in reference work.

Yeah.

I think that the kids come down here and they're going to be around the public people.

We don't say that the public can't come in when the school is, the school kids are here, everybody is working as a community, should side by side.

Everybody knows everybody in a small town, you know, you can't get away with too much.

And it's nice that they have that interaction and support each other.

- So who hired you then in the, under this odd arrangement?

Was it in place when you came on?

- Yeah, that was all that's been in place since in 1970.

- Oh no kidding.

- Seven - Wow.

- Is when that came about.

The school was told that they had to have a real library.

They had some books.

They had a place they would go that they called the library.

It was before our time.

And this building that would've been north of this one.

We are, we've never seen it.

We, we don't know what it was like, but there were books that they used.

But they needed a, a real library to be an accredited school district.

And so they built this building in 1970.

It was 76, 77.

And that's when the agreements started.

- Library Assistant Carol Greet specializes in library programming, particularly where the 10 sleep school kids are involved.

And the recommendation she made to the Wyoming State Library now has been adopted statewide.

- We have an afterschool program, we have story time, we have students come over and wanna do research.

And so we all kind of interact and help each other in whatever position, you know, is needed that day.

- There've been some well known, I guess we'd say welcome speakers that have come, stepped into your building here and done presentations for the community.

Who are a couple of those that, - Well, the one that's probably been, we know has been here the most is Craig Johnson.

- Yeah.

- He, he comes over the mountain.

He's, you know, we always just talk about coming over the hill and he comes to see us once or twice a year.

- Remind us what his claim to fame is.

- He writes the Walt Longmeyer mystery series, - Which, which began as a book series.

Right.

And, and - Has developed into Longmeyer days and all of that.

So yeah.

But he comes over, especially for his Christmas story that he puts out.

And, but then he'll come and promote his newest book and, and stop in.

- I mean that's great, isn't it?

- It is.

- He doesn't, he wouldn't have to do that.

- No, he - Doesn't have - Do that at all.

- No one would necessarily expect him to.

- No, - But means a lot to him.

- Yeah.

He, he's a very giving person.

He, he really treats libraries in the state of Wyoming quite well.

- Yeah.

And another, you mentioned a very tall author as I recall.

- We got Andrew Child to come.

- He doesn't have the same Wyoming connection that - No, he does live in Wyoming now - Does - Though.

He is from England and his brother Lee child started the Jack er series and Andrew's taking it over from his brother.

I see.

So they have co-authored books and Andrew has written books on his own as well.

But we got him to come two years ago and give a talk.

And then he joined us out at the trivia night.

- Well, you mentioned that as well.

You library staff goes over to trivia night at the local saloon, shall we say, - At the brewery.

- And you hold your own there.

- Sometimes we start off good.

There's a category or two that always gets us.

But - I think any trivia contest at the brewery, people are bound to be better at the beginning maybe than they're a couple hours later.

- No, not us.

But you're, - But that's good.

I mean that, again, you're known around the community.

The library staff is - Yeah.

- People know who you are and you know who they are and that's a, a part of it.

- Yeah.

I don't know why people always wanna beat us, but we rarely win.

So I don't know why their focus is always trying to beat the librarian.

- But that's the brainy acts at the library.

That's, that's what it's, yeah.

- I don't know about that.

- You have showed us a particular device called the Da Vinci Reader.

What is it generally?

- It's basically an enlargement tool for those that are suffering with loss of eyesight as they age, either through macular degeneration or, or whatever.

They can come in and, and read anything.

Basically using that reader.

It enlarges everything with just the push of a button.

If they don't need that enlargement capability, there is capability to switch the colors of the background or the print.

And sometimes that can help people that have dyslexia.

So it's sitting out, it's on, we turn it on every day just to show people that it's here and it's ready to be used.

- It struck me as kind of a much improved version of the old overhead projector Yeah.

That we had in school.

Yeah.

Put something on the flat surface.

The thing above it can enlarge.

Exactly.

But this does so much more than that.

- Yeah.

And, and you could swivel the, the camera too.

So you know, if it's not something you can actually lay down like a book or a newspaper.

- So if you had a big poster on an easel or something, you could aim the camera like that.

Yeah, you could.

What books are here?

You could aim it at the bookshelf.

- Yeah.

You could - Do - All sorts of things - Like that.

And that's been a valuable thing for you.

You told - Me it is.

And that was donated.

So somebody really blessed us with that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- One thing you drew particular attention to was a project that you helped the Wyoming State Library develop on Wyoming prisoner of war camps.

I think maybe when people think of that, they instantly think of the Heart Mountain internment camp near between Cody and Powell, which is well known and deserves the attention that it gets.

- So I had students come over and they had picked this as a project, not only Heart Mountain, but Heart Mountain's, a internment camp.

And they also wanted information on prisoner of war camps.

And those are two separate things.

And so I was struggling to find their, the answers they needed through the Wyoming Library databases, which is a wonderful thing that doesn't get used near as much.

But I always try and teach the kids how to do that.

Anyway, we were looking for this stuff and I was kind of struggling.

So I contacted the state library and said, can you help me point me in the right direction so I can lead these kids and show them where to find their information?

And they said, you know, that's good idea.

That would be a good idea.

Let's try and, and focus that.

So actually when you get on the history section of the Wyoming Library database, that link pops up about the, the 19 prisoner of war camps that we had scattered throughout the state of Wyoming.

- Here's a list of where they were based in Centennial, Claremont, Deaver dubois, Esther Brook, Huntley, lingo level, pine West, Powell, Riverton, Ryan Park, Torrington veteran Wheatland and Orleans all had, were a a a part of, of this operation where prisoners of war from mostly Italian and German, as I recall, at least one that I know about were brought, were captured, brought to this country and put to work.

Right.

But a lot of agricultural families that still live in the central I ag zone that have ties to that.

- Yeah.

- Some of 'em are family members even.

Right.

Some of 'em stayed.

So, - So they did everything from weed, sugar beets to Right.

Temper.

Yeah.

You know, so it, it is pretty fascinating in itself.

And, and most of the camps had from 200 to 500.

- Yeah.

- People in them.

So, - And I'm gonna brag on you here a little bit.

I'm just saying there's a program now, there's a, there's this small publication, this informational card very well might not have existed had you not placed that call.

- Well - Safe to say, - Safe - To say - They did all the work.

They - Did all the work.

But I was - Just trying to find - The answer - To - Help the kids.

But here's a small community librarian who had an idea and the state librarian said, let's do that.

Yeah.

In relation to getting this project off the ground, you mentioned the Wyoming Library databases and that you think that's a valuable and underutilized resource.

What is it exactly?

- It's databases that are free to anybody that has a Wyoming library card.

You can go in there for research and it has everything that can help a kid in school to somebody that's advanced in doing research for their PhD or whatever.

It spans everything from Wyoming history to medicine to agriculture.

It has things on there like the old Chilton books that used to open up to fix your Ford.

That's all online really.

All of these databases are places that you can go and trust the information that's there.

They're put out by Encyclopedia Britannica.

All of those companies that we grew up with and we trusted to learn from.

They're all online now.

And you can go through and research and you can learn a language, you can take the test, you can practice your driver's test, you could practice a real estate test, you could practice for being a paramedic.

They have all sorts of practice tests.

They can help you create your, your application, your resume.

So all of that kind of stuff is on there.

And it's amazing.

I'm not really sure how many databases we have.

Probably over 200.

- I'd like to be fun to get in there.

- It is.

'cause you kinda go down all these little rabbit holes and you know, you can, you can find cemetery records, you can find old newspapers.

And the same with genealogy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of people pay to get access to genealogy, but you can come to inside a library and use their wifi and they realize that you are in a library and you can get free genealogy services because you're in a library.

- And so the students who come over from the school, which is essentially next door to us here, that's something you expose them to.

You introduce that topic to them.

- This is a trusted source to come and learn.

And you know, there's so much that you see on AI anymore that I'm really trying to promote the kids as young as fifth grade.

You know, they come in and I start teaching them this stuff that they just can't Google.

It - Had a girl - To Karen Jean Funk, an expansion of the facility seven years ago.

Boosted offerings and efficiency also that the 10 sleep library can do more things for more people just like a bigger library can do.

So one of the things that it was, has occurred since the partnership was your library, the Washington County Library building got to expand eventually.

And you have much more space now than you would did had we come 15 years ago.

- We were able to expand in, I think it was 2019.

- What's that enabled you to do?

- Well, we certainly are having more efficient programming.

We have some mobile shelving.

We can push our shelving away from the walk areas.

And so we can have a speaker in our main part of the library.

We now have a conference room and it'll hold comfortably 30 people.

And that conference room was available for people after hours.

- You had a conference room before you said, but just barely.

- Yeah.

It was very, very small.

It was, it would fit six to eight people.

It was enough for all the kids in story hour to jam in there and have story hour.

It wasn't, it wasn't deficient at all.

So, - But now the room we have here, what's gotta be one of the best, the bigger public meeting places and 10 - Slate.

Right.

And yes.

And that's what people are looking for when they come to a library.

They need a, they need a space and, and occasionally they need a private space.

And if it's not being used for anything, they can do that in the summer when the climbers come and there's quite a few of them and they're out there with their laptops and they're, they're lined up and it becomes a quiet area for those people that need to do work on their laptops.

- It's available after hours.

- It - Is, it is.

There's a, there's a protocol for it, but not a real complicated thing.

No, - No.

- You use the building and you turn off the lights and lock up when you leave.

- Right.

That's how it works.

- And people do that.

- It's a lot of faith and trust in our community.

- Yeah.

- Good.

You know, I think we want to make sure that you know, that you can come here and we can do reference for you work for you just like in a library, in a bigger library.

Yeah.

We have a da Vinci reader.

Not every, every library has that.

And that will help with the people who have eye problems and enlarge things for people to read.

We have different items.

You know, we have, we do have books, we do have DVDs, we have MP three players, we have CD CDs you can use.

We have books that talk to you for, for kids.

Just many different items that you might find.

We might not have a lot of them.

- Yeah.

- But we have some of them.

- You can charge your phone here.

I saw.

- Oh - Yes.

Free charger.

- Free charger.

We have, and that internet is available, like I said, 24 7.

We have public computers for people.

We have a laptop with a camera so people can do a zoom and, and we have an afterschool program after the bell.

And we have many programs for those kids three days a week so that they can go ahead and have a safe place to go after school.

- Yeah.

Can refill their water bottle in the filtered station back there too.

Right.

That - Was another item that was donated by the friends of our - Library.

Oh, you talked about them a couple of times.

I don't think any community library now could do half of what it really wanted to do without a group like friends of That's - Right.

We and, and it's supported by the community.

And that's how we get our funding.

We have a fall dinner and we have several auctions throughout the year.

We have donations just kind of walk through the door sometimes.

Recently I had a gentleman from Florida contact me and ask me how to make a donation.

And I explained to him how to get to the friends and we struck up a little email conversation and he's an architect in, in Florida - And he come through in the summer sometimes.

He's never - Been here.

No.

But he reads all the western books, you know, he reads Craig Johnson, things like that.

And so we got to talk about books and he made a great donation.

If people are, you know, they, people are, they come into town off the mountain if they are traveling towards Yellowstone and they're, they're looking for someplace maybe to take a break after coming off that beautiful drive off the big horns.

And they see our sign on Main Street that shows the universal picture of a library.

And they go, oh, that made a nice place to take a break.

Yeah.

You know, they know immediately that that's a safe - Place.

And you're, you're glad about that.

- We're, we welcome - Them.

You want 'em to do - That?

Yep.

We give them directions on the map and it's, it's wonderful.

- In fact, the little unofficial slogan that we joked should be on the t-shirts included the library ring A safe place.

What's the whole part of it?

If you go into the library, you know, it's, - It's a safe place, has a clean bathroom, and we can give you direction.

Yeah, yeah.

- Nice to have.

- Yeah.

- You don't want to have to say no to somebody.

- We never say no.

We usually chase people out the door with more information.