Library urges staff not to talk about empty shelves
The Saskatoon Public Library wants its staff to avoid long conversations and debates with patrons about a controversial accessibility policy that has resulted in some shelves being emptied of books.
Instead, staff can use a comment made by a former employee who uses a mobility scooter as evidence of the policy’s success, a library manager wrote in an internal memo obtained by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
“I asked her how she thinks SPL does with regards to accessibility. One of the first things she said to me was how much she appreciated that we didn’t shelve on the top or bottom shelves,” Jannay Thiessen wrote in the memo.
“Please do not mention any names or that the person who appreciated our shelving used to work here. We can simply say that we’ve had comments appreciating the shelving,” Thiessen added.
Thiessen sent the memo on Feb. 28, hours after the StarPhoenix reported that current and former library employees were told to “declutter” shelves and that some questioned the need to remove hundreds of books, CDs and DVDs from circulation.
The library maintains that the removal of high and low shelves is intended to meet new City of Saskatoon accessibility standards, and the “unfortunate reality” of cuts to the collection is offset by increased storage at its central branch.
According to the city’s six-yearold accessibility guidelines, the standards are informed by the province’s human rights code and “applied to all newly constructed and/or renovated City of Saskatoon owned, leased or operated facilities.”
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 2669 president Pamela Ryder said while library workers are committed to making branches more accessible, they tend to oppose anything that could diminish the branches’ collections.
“A lot of what our work is, as library workers, is creating a good collection — and if that isn’t valuable in the library anymore, then it’s really difficult to say what would be valuable in the library,” Ryder said.
Library administrators say the collection grew to 580,041 titles last year, from 552,092 in 2016. A detailed breakdown provided to the StarPhoenix last week shows that almost 12,000 books were added to the collection during the last year.
A request to interview library CEO Carol Cooley was declined. In an email, library spokeswoman Janna Sampson said the accessibility standards are not optional and the memo is “consistent” with the organization’s commitment to accessibility.
“It provided information for employees to share with patrons who may have questions about what they read in the paper,” Sampson said in the email.
Concern about empty shelves coincides with a major restructuring in the library system, under which most unionized employees have had or will have to apply for new positions. Some are expected to take pay cuts as a result.
CUPE Local 2669 opposes aspects of the plan on the grounds that it will affect members’ livelihoods.
Ryder told the StarPhoenix in October that the prospect of wage reductions had caused morale among employees to crater.
The union is also in the midst of negotiating a new collective agreement. Its roughly 260 members have been working without a contract since Dec. 31, 2016.