As anticipation is growing for the opening of the new Powell River Public Library later this spring, so too is its operating budget.
Chief librarian Terry Noreault and library board chair Rod Wiebe provided the library’s annual budget report to council on Thursday, February 16.
The library’s operating budget for 2017 is $1.2 million, according to Noreault’s presentation, an increase of roughly a quarter of a million dollars over 2016.
The new facility will bring Powell River up from having one of the smallest libraries in the province to somewhere in the middle of the pack, Noreault told council. The library’s new Alberni Street location is scheduled to open in May.
“After looking at the designs for the last two years, it’s amazing to see the space,” Noreault told council. “It’s a lot bigger than it is on paper.”
Councillor Jim Palm asked Noreault what the city should expect in terms of an increase in visits once the new facility opens. Noreault said that most new libraries see an immediate 40 per cent increase in visits, but over the long term it is lower.
“If the facility is good and meets a community need, the jump should balance out at a 25 per cent increase in the long term,” said Noreault.
Grants are slated to increase from City of Powell River and Powell River Regional District by 29.5 per cent in 2017. The proposed city grant is $740,127, while the regional district will provide $313,985.
Noreault said the rough 70-30 distribution for funding actually matched similar proportions of library card distribution between the city and electoral areas. Tla’amin Nation will increase its contribution toward operating the library by 24 per cent, from $3,713 to $4,604.
The provincial government will provide $56,611 for operations, the same as in 2016. Noreault said he did not think that allocation was stable and told council he expects it to change in coming years.
“I feel very tentative about the province’s allocation,” he said.
With more shelf space to fill and an increase in electronic titles, what the library provides has continued to grow. In 2016, the library had 43,120 print titles and 68,961 electronic titles.
The one service that has caught on dramatically is patrons’ abilities to put electronic books on their e-readers, said Noreault.
The library received 113,964 visits in 2016 from its more than 8,000 active cardholders, Noreault told city council. The majority of titles borrowed last year were non-fiction.
“If you want to predict if a title will do well in Powell River, just put ‘how-to’ in front of it,” he said. “We have a very how-to-oriented community.”
