Library Chat: Local funding for library helps to create services that people use

By Medicine Hat News on August 3, 2018.

Last week my social media was abuzz with reaction to an article that appeared on Forbes.com. Now that I’m a columnist myself I shouldn’t take pleasure in another writer’s downfall but the case is instructive.

The Forbes article argued that Amazon bookstores should “replace local libraries and save taxpayers lots of money.”I could rebut the author’s points but it is more fun to watch others do so. “Behold This Disastrously Bad Op-Ed Calling for Amazon to Replace Libraries” reads one of many headlines reporting on the story. Gizmodo.com goes on to say the columnist “has spent the last day being continually clowned on by hundreds, if not thousands, of users on Twitter.” Within hours Forbes had taken down the article.

I do not think that libraries are a sacred cow that cannot be questioned or critically evaluated, and I do not consider taxpayer funding to be an inalienable right for libraries or any other public institution.However, I surely love the grassroots fury that rises up each and every time someone flippantly dismisses the value of libraries, or when library funding is cut in a careless or drastic way.

In 2016 Newfoundland tried to close many of the province’s rural libraries.In 2017 Saskatchewan attempted cuts that would have eliminated core library services.I worked at Regina Public Library in 2003 when plans were announced to close several branches and a library art gallery.In each case, public outrage resulted in reversals to the cuts.

The mistake these writers and decision makers made was not to question or cut, but to do so in a way that showed contempt for the value of libraries, ignorance of their benefits, and indifference to the results of cuts.It is fair to ask pointed questions about value for money, and to fund at a responsible and sustainable level. But those who cut a swath of destruction, take a meat axe to funding, or dismiss the value of the institution without doing their homework, soon discover the library is not so irrelevant to others as it is to themselves.

In medicine they talk about “evidence based” decision making, which is the crazy idea of letting demonstrated facts and reality guide your actions.A few facts about our library which begin to tell part of our story: Our 2015 municipal funding equalled $37.38 per resident.St Albert is a bit bigger than Medicine Hat and it funded at $63.22.Airdrie is a bit smaller and it funded at $35.58.St Albert got about 342,000 visitors that year and circulated more than a million items.Airdrie had 173,000 visitors and 470,000 circulations, while Medicine Hat had 248,000 visitors and 527,000 circulations.This tells me that we are in the middle of the pack when it comes to funding and use, and that you get what you pay for — funding creates services that people use.

Ken Feser is chief librarian at the Medicine Hat Public Library.

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