INNISFAIL – The public’s purchase of used books at the Book Exchange inside the town’s Co-op grocery store is supporting the increased demand for popular e-resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Feb. 26, Tara Downs, the manager of the Innisfail Public Library, received a cheque of $1,050 from Chris Irvine, the Co-op grocery store’s assistant store manager.
The funds are total monies collected over the past year from purchases Innisfailians made for used books at the store’s Book Exchange. Citizens have the option of paying 50 cents a book, or trading one of their own for another at the Book Exchange.
“Every little bit helps. It is nice. It accounts for a big chunk of what we spend on e-resources,” said Downs, noting donations have been down during the first year of the pandemic.
“We don’t have that traffic. So even books coming in that we resell, those have been down, and just donations in general, and sometimes for programs. Those have also been down.
“Even in terms of people renewing their membership for their cards for the year has been down a bit because we don’t have people coming in to the library."
Twice over the past year the library has been closed to the public due to the pandemic. However, the doors are now open to the public since the latest restriction was lifted March 1, although the library must limit capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy, not including staff.
The library’s e-resources became a hot commodity since COVID-19 began a year ago. Downs noted that e-resource circulation figures for books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, newspapers during last April at the beginning of COVID was 867 items, more than four times what it was a year earlier when 212 items were signed out.
“It was crazy,” she said.
Downs said the demand has settled at about 500 plus e-resource items per month, as the library still has been circulating physical items throughout the second closure via curbside pick-up.
With demand still strong, Downs said the $1,050 donation will go towards more e-resources, especially e-books.
“It helps because it gives us the opportunity to buy something we probably wouldn’t necessarily buy for that amount,” said Downs.
As for the Book Exchange at the Co-op grocery store, the service has been at the Innisfail store and others in Central Alberta, including the company’s Red Deer stores and a Lacombe outlet, for several years.
Lori Piper, marketing and community relations manager for Central Alberta Co-op Ltd, said the company is happy to support the program on behalf of its customers.
“It is the people that are utilizing that program that make it possible,” said Piper of the annual donation to the public library.
“It is a nominal fee. We give them the vessel to do it but it is those who are taking part in that book program that make that donation possible.”
