| Apr 21, 2011


The Kingston Frontenac Public Library has a new board of directors in place after municipal elections last fall.

Over the next four years the board will oversee the operations of the library and will also be faced with some challenges related to the capacity of some of the library’s branches, including some of the smaller branches in Central and North Frontenac.

Last year, the board commissioned a study by 8020Info of Kingston into library user perceptions and preferences. They also considered and adopted a set of standards that were prepared by the Administrators of Rural and Urban Public Libraries of Ontario (ARUPLO), and prepared a Branch Master Plan document, which was presented to a library board meeting in late October of 2010.

Library Board Chair, Claudette Richardson, said that the master plan is not “so much a plan or a blueprint, but a set of guidelines for us to measure where the library is in relation to the standards that we would like to achieve.”

Information from a branch services review that was completed in 2004, which caused quite a bit of controversy in Central and north Frontenac because it called for the closure of a number of local branches, including the Parham, Arden, Mountain Grove and Ompah branches, is included as an appendix to the branch master plan.

In the plan each branch is evaluated in relation to where it stands in relation to the standards for its category of branch. At the end of the evaluations are recommendations about what would be needed to bring the branches up to standard.

The Arden branch, for example, would need to be enlarged by 470 square feet and have its washroom upgraded to meet accessibility standards. It would also need to be open five more hours each week.

What is worrying to a group of people who have been meeting informally over the winter to talk about rural library service is that under both the Parham and Mountain Grove branches, the plan says the future will depend on the future of the school in each community, “so no enhancements are being considered until that is settled”.

When asked about that, Claudette Richardson said that school closings are not a determining factor in the future of library services. “They are only one factor,” she said, “as would be the opening or closing of a liquor store near a branch.”

Last summer, the Limestone District School Board revealed plans to close Hinchinbrooke School as soon as a new school is built in Sharbot Lake, and to keep Land O’Lakes Public School open.

Under the Ompah branch, which is the smallest in the Kingston Frontenac Public Library system, there are no recommendations for upgrades in the branch profile that is part of the branch master plan.

Members of the Ompah library users group have been lobbying the library board for more hours (it is only open four hours a week), to no avail.

“We receive requests for more branch hours on a weekly basis for each and every one of our branches; Ompah is by no means alone in that, ” said Richardson. “Our studies reveal we should need 66 more hours throughout the system just to meet the minimum standards.”

Richardson said that the studies that have been done and the reports that have been made to the library board are all about “making sure that we have numbers in front of us so we can make decisions based on more than assumptions. On the one hand we are working to promote the library service and trying to refresh and improve our services throughout the system, but on the other hand we have to act responsibly, since we are spending public money.”

Paige Cousineau, a newly minted member of the KFPL Board, who comes from Ompah and was appointed by Frontenac County Council, has been attending the meetings of the library users group, which includes people from Ompah, Arden, Parham, Mountain Grove and elsewhere. She said, “The users group has nothing to do with the library board. They just decided that an umbrella group should be formed to represent their shared interests.”

Cousineau added that in her view, “The library board is exceptionally capable. I fully expect to be able to work with the board to formulate policies for the rural library service that meet people’s needs and desires.”

 

 

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