Check your image of the modern librarian at the door.
“We no longer have to wear orthopedic shoes; buns are optional and some
of us have had laser surgery and don’t have to wear those glasses,”
joked Linda Pleskach about her profession.
Commuting daily from her Beausejour, Man., farm, Pleskach heads the
Selkirk public library.
She said it’s not only the librarian who has changed in her 24-year
career. Technology has turned rural libraries “180 degrees.”
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Manitoba library patrons can order and receive books and other items
within 36 hours by mail. Selkirk’s library has a program to send new
mothers home from the hospital with a bag of books; home-bound people
identified by the regional health authority are shipped books, and
there’s Maplin. This automated system allows people to search by
computer among the province’s three million item collection for a
specific book or resource.
Pleskach said that in many rural libraries there is only one person –
“you wash the windows, change the display” – so having any process
automated has helped. But while computers have freed librarians from
doing a lot of drudge work among card files and reference books, their
patrons are now asking them for technical help to surf the internet.
All is not rosy in the book lover’s world. This past year the Alberta
and Manitoba Women’s Institutes both raised the issue of library
funding with their respective governments. Provincial grants are based
on a per capita formula and, with declining rural populations,
libraries are getting less money.
Another problem is that in Manitoba and Alberta, local municipalities
can choose whether to give tax revenue to the local library. Sometimes
the answer is no. Joe Masi, executive director of the Association of
Manitoba Municipalities, said the group is asking the province to put
more money into libraries, especially in rural areas with falling
populations.
Manitoba’s government official in charge of public libraries, Ken
Kuryliw, said if a rural municipality doesn’t pay a grant to a library
system, it will cost zero to $60 to get a library card. He estimated 15
percent of the province would have to pay such a fee, although the
provincial system will mail people batches of books as a free service.
Pleskach said libraries, especially in rural areas, have learned to be
more savvy in justifying their existence to reluctant councillors.
“I’m a farmer. I respect issues of drainage and road maintenance. If we
don’t have those you’re not going to get to the library anyways.”
Alberta’s librarians are lobbying their government for funding to allow
a totally free library card, good all over their province, said Joanne
Cooper of the Camrose, Alta., public library. She said two years ago
the library in Banff, Alta., abolished the library card fee and the
number of items borrowed has risen 40 percent. She said Alberta and
Quebec are the only provinces in Canada requiring people to pay a
membership fee to use libraries. Camrose charges a family library rate
of $25 a year to residents of supporting municipalities and $80 a year
to non-resident households from areas that do not pay a library grant.
Saskatchewan is different. In 1996, the province passed a law that
requires all municipalities to contribute funds to their library
system. Provincial librarian Joy Campbell said there is no charge for
library cards. She also noted the provincial grant includes some
factors to even out the effect of falling rural populations. The
province pays 44.5 percent of the library system, with most of the rest
covered by local levies.
