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Wheatland Regional Library Press Release March 20th, 2008 The Public Library Systems in Saskatchewan are in shock after the provincial budget was released yesterday. All ten public library systems, which cover the entire province, have been suffering for decades from a lack of adequate provincial support for infrastructure and programs. Despite the 242.8 million dollar increase to the Ministry of Education budget, the 10 library systems received $163,633 or a 2.3% increase in Resource Sharing grants as their share of the Education increase, an amount that falls short of a cost-of-living increase for libraries. Over the past 15 years, Provincial funding for libraries has increased only 15.5% (an average of only 1% per year) whereas comparatively, the municipal government’s funding of public libraries through levies and direct support has risen over 44% in that same time period. By not receiving an annual increase that reflects the cost–of-living, a situation has been created where public library funding has fallen further behind every year. Several of the smaller regional library systems may face closures, as they simply do not have the revenue to continue. This is shocking in a time when libraries are more popular than ever and the province is experiencing a financial boom. A provincial government that claims to support rural communities is instead creating a situation where services to rural communities may further decline. Resource sharing is a fundamental principal for the province’s library systems. The rural branch libraries are completely dependent on resource sharing. The rural and urban libraries in Saskatchewan cooperate and share our resources so that every person in this province can benefit from resources housed in any library system. The province’s funding of this system is crucial to its continuance. The 2.3% increase to the funding level announced yesterday is below the current rate of inflation and is not sufficient to continue, let alone grow this program to meet current public demands. The price of fuel and of other costs is continually rising and the cost of providing library services rises with these costs. Library services are essential in both large cities and in the small rural communities. In a year when the Ministry of Education highlighted early learning as a priority it is horrifying that they did not increase funding to the one organization that offers early learning opportunities for all of the province’s preschoolers. Without the public libraries’ collections of materials for preschoolers, and programs like story-time, many children would be left without resources in their community. Services to the rest of the population such as school-aged children, adults, new immigrants and seniors are all equally threatened. In 2008 all the library systems are facing the need to replace a critical piece of their infrastructure – their online catalogues. All of the public library systems are facing an end-of-life date for their circulation systems within the next three years. They had joined together to propose a significant infrastructure project to the provincial government called the Single Integrated Library Circulation System. This infrastructure project proposed that a single circulation system be purchased for the entire province. This would mean substantial savings compared to each system purchasing their own circulation system. It would also increase resource sharing opportunities between libraries, both rural and urban, and allow them to establish a “one library card system” that everyone in the province could use to access services at any public library in the province. It would mean an improvement in library services to every resident of Saskatchewan as well as create a secure infrastructure for libraries. The library service to rural areas will be jeopardized due to the non-funding of the Single Integrated Library System. In the Wheatland region alone it will take between $150,000 and $200,000 to replace our soon-to-be decommissioned Horizon circulation system. We have no choice and the money is not readily available. It could mean the demise in the rural areas of our online system and severely hamper our ability to make materials available to all through the resource sharing. This is happening in every regional library system in Saskatchewan. The Ministry of Education failed to fund this major province-wide infrastructure project. This is devastating news for every branch in every public library system. The cost of replacing each system’s circulation system individually will be huge and will have to be born out of the already inadequate resource sharing funding. The libraries have no choice but to increase the rural library levy to help with the cost to replace the end-of-life systems. The burden of that financial commitment for this infrastructure project will now be downloaded upon the municipalities. Many of the smaller rural municipalities will likely be unable to afford the cost of this necessary upgrade. If you support public libraries and are concerned about the effect this will have upon your municipal levy rates, please call your MLA today to express your opinion on this urgent matter. |
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