Waterloo library celebrates, but still has uphill climb

The magic number, it turned out, was just $94,000.

That’s less than one dollar per year for every man, woman and child in Waterloo.

That was all it took to open the John M. Harper branch of the Waterloo Public Library on Fridays starting July 7 — something that residents across the city had been begging for, for years.

It’s a tiny amount of money, when you place it against the cost of running a whole city. Yet it has resolved an enormous grievance in this city.

You may recall that the Harper branch, at Fischer-Hallman Road and Laurelwood Drive, has been closed on Fridays and Sundays for nearly 18 months.

Part of that problem was created when Waterloo council allowed the beautiful new branch to open six years ago without dedicating any operating funds for it.

I don’t know how councillors thought staff would get hired, or how the hydro bill would get paid, on zero operating dollars, but that’s what they decided.

The library board took resources from other branches to pay costs for the Harper branch, and limped along for a few years.

Meanwhile, negotiations for a sustainable budget from the city are ongoing, says library board chair Karen Scian.

Waterloo residents love using their library, which isn’t just about loaning books, but also offers many learning opportunities. Those include classes in the Mandarin language, support groups for recent immigrants, and training on how to use electronic devices.

What changed recently was the retirement of a staff member, plus some other internal efficiencies for which Scian gave credit to the library’s “thoughtful, smart, and business-oriented” chief executive officer, Laurie Clarke.

Those savings added up to $94,000, which is what it happens to cost to open the Harper branch one extra day for a year.

Scian said the board chose Friday over Sunday for the library to be open because demand is higher on Fridays.

And, because a Sunday opening would only be for the afternoon, Friday gives residents “more bang for the buck,” she said.

It’s a good-news story, for sure. Libraries are still the greatest social leveller of all. Their programming is free, and their quiet, safe spaces offer an opportunity for limitless learning no matter how little money you have.

Scian says this particular solution for Harper is a permanent one.

“We’re fully comfortable that these choices are solid,” she said.

But there are still difficult decisions ahead for Waterloo’s library.

“Nothing has changed in the budget model, said Scian, who is a former Waterloo councillor.

“It’s the internal workings of our library system that allowed us to move forward” and open the Harper branch on Fridays.

Waterloo’s libraries receive just under $5 million a year from the city.

That places it in the middle range for cities this size.

But Waterloo has additional pressures on its libraries that other cities don’t have. It has a greater proportion of senior citizens and university students, both of whom use libraries more than average.

And Waterloo’s citizens are unusually averse to tax hikes. It’s a political culture for which the traumatic RIM Park financial scandal and ensuing debt is partially responsible.

The better the libraries are, the more people will want to use them. Meanwhile, the eastern part of the city is clamouring for a branch of its own.

Sooner or later, the city will have to hold its nose and make the longoverdue investments.