Libraries in the Northeast could see reduced access to other libraries’ materials and digital offerings as a result of the provincial budget. Some small libraries could even close.
The Wapiti Regional Library will lose approximately $400,000 in funding as of April 1, a cut of around 60 per cent of its budget.
Cheryl Bauer Hyde, the chair of the regional library, said the cut is significant.
“Without warning, without consultation, without any sort of a transition plan, the government reduced the provincial funding to the Wapiti Regional Library by almost 60 per cent.”
Across the province, regional libraries are getting $2.5 million, a decrease of $3.5 million from last year. The Saskatoon and Regina municipal libraries will receive no funding.
The regional library doesn’t provide library buildings or local staff – that’s done by municipalities. What they actually do is provide training to local librarians, run the exchange program between libraries and help acquire new materials.
“Everything’s on the table,” Bauer Hyde said. “This could result in closures of branch libraries because we don’t have the staff at the regional library to provide support. It could be a reduction of staff at the regional library. It’s already a small staff. There are only about eight people there.”
Bauer Hyde said the regional library’s concerned about the impact on Saskatchewan Information and Library Services Consortium, which allows Saskatchewan residents to use their library card anywhere in the province.
“We’re concerned about the impact of whether or not we can continue to afford that service, ” Bauer Hyde said, adding she wonders if Saskatoon and Regina will continue to participate due to their cuts.
Fred Bradshaw, the MLA for Carrot River Valley, and Donna Harpauer, the MLA for Humboldt-Watrous, both said the province focused on protecting core services like health and education when creating the budget and that other items would have to face cuts due to reduced revenues.
Bauer Hyde said there’s actually an increase in library services.
“There are community hubs,” she said. “It’s not just about books. They’re really a resource centre to the whole community.”
Those services include kids’ programming, computer services and access to the Internet, the lending out of e-book and other digital offerings, reading by authors and workshop for adults like the resume writing course in Tisdale.
The chair said the regional libraries look for support by others.
“We’re looking to some leadership from SARM and SUMA. This is really a continued downloading onto the municipalities because if we want services to continue in the centres outside of Saskatoon and Regina, this could be an increased cost to the municipalities.”
She added she hoped citizens would also talk to their elected officials about the issue.
