Toronto libraries face budget cuts
Province says virtual reference program is underutilized, will reroute funds to remote and indigenous branches
The Ontario government is cutting a $700,000 annual grant to Toronto Public Library (TPL) to operate a “virtual reference library,” a move the city librarian warns will curtail some services.
Vickery Bowles warned city manager Peter Wallace, in an email obtained by the Star, of the cut to “funding that has been received annually for almost the past twenty years, although flatlined” in recent years.
“This represents $1.4 million with an in-year 2017 budget cut of $700,000 and the remaining $700,000 in 2018.”
The cut appears to relate to a recent provincial announcement of a $1-million investment in rural, remote and indigenous libraries, she wrote.
“We applaud this much-needed investment,” Bowles added. “However, this corresponding reduction in funding at TPL cannot be absorbed and there will be service impacts.
“This provincial funding is a major source of revenue for TPL’s digitization program, including content development, web development and online services for all Ontarians” who can access the Toronto reference library’s vast collections of historical materials, Bowles wrote.
At Queen’s Park, Culture Minister Eleanor McMahon said TPL’s base funding “is not being touched whatsoever.”
She acknowledged that funding for the virtual reference library, which is operated by the city for the province, is being cut.
“This program has seen fewer and fewer users and so we’ve decided to make those investments in a different way,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park.
“With the advances in technology, we’ve made a decision to diminish it and to invest the funding in innovation across Ontario.”
Mayor John Tory told reporters he’ll ask the province to review and hopefully reverse the decision.
“You can’t take $700,000 out of a library budget and not have an impact,” said Tory, who has been in a war of words with Premier Kathleen Wynne over her 2017 budget’s lack of funds for social housing repairs.
McMahon argued the decision is “not at all” a slap in the face for Toronto.
She said the city was notified last year of the pending change, although Bowles’s email suggests she was caught off guard by the news. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was not buying McMahon’s reasoning.
“Once again the city of Toronto is being shortchanged by the Liberal government,” Horwath said. With files from Rob Ferguson