Let’s be proactive when it comes to libraries

We don’t wait until the car is in a skid to put on a seat belt, do we?

Imagine this: you’re sitting outside a building watching people come and go. There are pregnant women, young parents with infants, toddlers, school children, teenagers, young adults, middleaged, the old and the ancient. Their visits range from a few seconds to several hours. What is the building?

It is understandable if you answered hospital or medical clinic. The answer, of course, is the library. Libraries have been part of the human experience for almost 3,000 years. At first they were the province of scholars and the rich – the only ones who could read. With current Canadian literacy rates nearing 100 per cent, libraries offer something for everyone.

With the approach of Internet, social media and e-books, it was widely predicted that library use would decline dramatically.

Not so.

Statistics indicate that physical visits to libraries picked up 37 per cent between 2001 and 2011, and forecasting a greater increase on the horizon. Hard-working library people are serving more users with fewer resources. So far there has been no mention of actual cuts to the budget, but neither has there been any increase.

Cape Breton Regional Library funding has been flatlined for almost a decade, resulting in a loss of 16 per cent of purchasing power. That puts the squeeze on everything: acquisitions, programs, staffing. You can only tighten the belt so much before circulation is cut off altogether.

If things are uncomfortable in Nova Scotia, it is much worse in some other provinces. It may be that in times of fiscal discomfort, provincial libraries appear to be a soft target to those who count the beans. Newfoundland’s library budget was cut drastically last year resulting in the closing of 54 branches. And earlier this month, the government of Saskatchewan slashed their library budget by 58 per cent.

Among other damage there, that means no new acquisitions, no interlibrary loans, no digital resources (e-books or magazines or newspapers or streamed movies), no staff training, book clubs, IT support, and significant loss of library programs.

The response was immediate. In over 85 separate demonstrations, almost 6,000 people gathered to protest the cuts and to show support for their community libraries.

Alberta, on the other hand, is increasing library funding, realizing that libraries are so much more than simply a place to borrow books.

To get a sense of how much the library means in your community, take a look at the website, cbrl.ca. Click on Upcoming Events and see the programs on offer. The Cape Breton Regional Library operates branches in a dozen communities along with two bookmobiles that make a combined 87 stops in our communities every month.

It is extremely difficult to convince someone to undo something they have already done. That may be even more true with governments. Better by far to take action before something happens. We don’t wait until the car is in a skid to put on a seat belt, do we?

Here are some things you can do to support your library:

Use the library. Join with 23,000 other library members in our communities. Borrow books, DVDs, e-books, audio books, take part in programs, use the computers.

Write to your MLA, your councillor, your mayor, your local newspaper. Tell them that your library is important to you, and why; tell them what services you use; suggest that cutbacks would affect you negatively but that a modest funding increase would be money well spent.

Libraries must fundraise three per cent of their operating budget. Support these efforts by attending events, buying used books, organizing fund-raisers of your own.

Cape Breton Regional Libraries has an Adopt-A-Book program. Your donation allows them to buy a title, and you get a Thank You plate in the front of the book. And here’s something to keep in mind, words of wisdom from a great Canadian songwriter:

Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

Do what you can now, before someone comes to pave it over.

“Cape Breton Regional Library funding has been flat-lined for almost a decade.”