Library needed in core: councillor
McKenney concerned public not consulted enough on possible move
Downtown Ottawa should have a library branch even if the central library moves out of the city’s core, the ward councillor says.
“I think in the city every child should be able to walk to a library branch,” Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney said Tuesday. “There are quite a lot of people who live in the downtown.”
The Ottawa Public Library is looking for a new location for a central library, possibly as a joint project with Library and Archives Canada. The two organizations are in talks to see if a super library makes sense.
McKenney, who’s a library trustee, is keen on keeping the main library as central as possible. She’s apprehensive about pushing the facility west of Bronson Avenue because the current library at Laurier Avenue and Metcalfe Street serves a diverse demographic.
The LeBreton Flats design competition has generated more interest in building a new library on the federal land west of downtown. Both finalists in the competition propose building a city library at Albert and Booth streets, near the future Pimisi LRT station. The OPL central library process is separate from the LeBreton Flats competition.
McKenney said she’s still concerned the public isn’t being consulted enough on the central library and the criteria used to locate a new facility. She wants an analysis done on how many people would live near a downtown library and one located, for example, at LeBreton Flats. Residents should have easy access to a library branch, she said, using the Golden Triangle between Elgin Street and the Rideau Canal as an example of a neighbourhood that would lose out if the main library is relocated west of the core.
It’s difficult to say how the library board would view the prospect of adding another branch to the central area, on top of a new main library, especially as online library services grow in popularity. It’s part of a larger debate on the requirements of a modern library and the future of “books and mortar” facilities.
McKenney said she hasn’t given more thought to what a smaller downtown branch would look like since the focus is on the central library project.
Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney, chair of the library board, said it would be up to trustees to decide if library services should be in the core of the city if the central facility relocates outside downtown.
Tierney noted that the request for proposals hasn’t been released, so the location for a new main library is still up in the air.
The library board was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon but the meeting was cancelled because not enough trustees could attend. There were no action items on the agenda related to the central library project, but trustees were expected to receive an update.