Feature Article October 7, 2004
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Final Library report little changed from draft; Library Board awaits recommendations from the Services Review Committeeby Jeff Green
The final consultants report that looks to the future needs of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library over a 20-year period was released to the public last week, and it contains only minor changes from a draft report that led to an angry public meeting in Sharbot Lake this past June.
Much of the consternation at the meeting in Sharbot Lake concerned a section of the report called The Rural North.
Based upon the analysis done by dma Consulting of Mississauga, the draft final report called for an enhancement of the service offered out of Sharbot Lake by building a new, larger branch, and closing the Arden, Mountain Grove, and Parham branches. In North Frontenac the report called for the enhancement of the Plevna branch, closing the Ompah branch, and leaving the Cloyne branch as it is.
While the final report adds some more acknowledgement of the role some of the branches play in the local communities, it nonetheless makes the same recommendations as the draft report did.
There is no need to get overly excited about this report, says Mayor Bill MacDonald of Central Frontenac, who has represented the County of Frontenac on the KFPL board for the past 7 years.
MacDonald said that the Board received the report for information only, at its meeting last week, and will be hearing back soon from the ad hoc committee on services review as to which parts of the report the committee thinks the board should act upon. I cant see branch closings in the north being contemplated, with all the pressing concerns there are to the south.
There has been an ongoing problem at one of the five library branches in the City of Kingston, the Calvin Park branch, and this precipitated the consultants report in the first place.
For several years the Annual Reports of the Chief Librarian have reported on the numerous physical problems at the branch, which include a leaky roof that has defied repeated attempts at repair along with a faulty heating system, among others.
As a board, we knew we had to move forward on Calvin Park, and we decided we should look at the entire system at the same time, so we entered into the review, MacDonald said.
One of the revelations of the Services Review is the fact that South Frontenac is severely under served by the current library system in terms of square feet of branch space relative to the population. The report says the target is a total of 0.5 sq. feet of library space per capita and South Frontenac currently has only 0.19 sq. feet per capita.
More worrying is the finding that library usage, throughout the system, is heavily weighted to older members of the population. Young people are not using the library, and this must change if the institution is to remain vibrant into the future.
The ad hoc Library Services Review Committee, which will report back later this month, is expected to focus their report on the situation at Calvin Park and on addressing the lack of service in South Frontenac. The Rural North will be treated gingerly, if at all, since there is no immediate problem in the region.
The library system is a partnership between the Library board, which requisitions funding from the County of Frontenac and the City of Kingston each year to operate the system, and the municipalities themselves, who own and maintain the buildings, Bill MacDonald said.
The Library Board may indeed propose there be a new 4,000 sq. foot library built in Sydenham to replace the existing one, and a brand new 4,000 square foot library in Verona as the report recommends. But it will be up to the Council of South Frontenac to put up new buildings or retrofit buildings in order to make the plan come to life. A multi-million dollar library expansion project will take its place among other Council concerns - among road maintenance, waste management, furnishings for the Council chamber, and many other possible expenditures.How popular are the rural libraries?
The KFPL compiles annual circulation reports for each of its branches. The numbers fluctuate from year to year and for smaller libraries the fluctuations can be quite large on a percentage basis. But comparing figures from 2003 to those from 1998, would suggest library use has increased marginally in the rural area over the six years. Total rural circulation was 135,025 items in 2003 compared to 123,244 in 1998. The only branch to see a net decrease is the Arden branch, down from 6605 to 6369, while the greatest percentage increase has been in Sharbot Lake, from 15,875 in 1998 to 19,042 in 2003, a 19% increase in circulation.
The picture in the urban area is similar.
The consultants report predicts that smaller branches will cease to serve the needs of the population in years to come. Trends suggest that library facilities and services in the Rural North will not meet the needs and expectations of future library users. If these trends come to pass, they may be reflected in future years circulation figures.
(Information taken from the Final Library Report and the Annual reports of the Chief Librarian for 2001 and 2003. All of this information and much more is available at www.kfpl.ca)
