Bowden councillor Sheila Church is wondering if the Parkland Regional Library in the town could offer free memberships to try and encourage kids to take out books.
“Edmonton did it for one year to celebrate their 100th anniversary and they had such a huge increase in memberships and usage so that they have managed to carry on, and so Calgary is following suit,” Church said during a Bowden council meeting.
“As the (bigger) towns do it, around the province, people are thinking, ‘well, how can we possibly make it so that we don't have to charge fees in branches?' Because let's face it, there are kids in this town who come in and use the computers all the time and cannot take out a book because they don't have a membership – and that seems wrong,” she said.
“It does,” Mayor Robb Stuart said.
“They can use a computer because it was originally bought with a federal grant – and that was part of it – they had to be open to everybody. But if they see a book that they'd really like to take out, they can't,” Church said.
“Well, they can come in, sit down and read a book; they just can't take it with them,” Coun. Paul Webb said.
“What one library is doing that is kind of innovative, they've got a charitable number so then they say to people, ‘membership is free but would you be interested in paying $15 a year and we'll issue you a tax receipt?' And that's going over well,” Church said.
“But it does mean that you have to go through the agony of getting a tax status,” she added. “Quite a kerfuffle; it really is. But anyway, that's what some libraries are doing as a way around it.”
That was one issue raised by Church in regard to the library.
Another was that some visits are being discontinued.
“They had a problem I think with telling the classes what time to be there. They hadn't communicated well enough, and so the time arrived, they waited and no kids showed up so they phoned the schools and there was a terrible scramble to get them down there,” she said.
She said that's sad because she believes children really enjoyed those visits.
“I'm very disappointed, because when we look at other libraries and the kind of programs they have, I know that there are kids in Bowden who go to Innisfail to have their ABC preschool program and so on because we don't have anything like that here.”
Church said she understands money is very tight for the library, but it's still a concern.
She also said it's her understanding there's no money in the library budget to buy books from local authors.
“I think it's something we've always done,” Church said. “When a local person writes a book we usually try at least to buy it.”
On the bright side, “I see there was an increase in salary and benefits. That's good to see,” Stuart said.
“Yeah. Not much,” Church replied.
“A whole lot more than before, which was zero,” Stuart said.
Church conceded that point.
