There will be two opportunities for the public to check out the proposed new Powell River Public Library site at Crossroads Village Shopping Centre before the referendum next month.
The first open house will be held from 2 to 4 pm and 5 to 7 pm on Monday, October 27, at the Crossroads Village location that will be the subject of the November 15 library referendum. The second will be 10 am to noon and 2 to 4 pm Saturday, November 8.
“We are really excited about the proposal that Crossroads has brought forward,” said Terry Noreault, the interim chief librarian at the library. “I was comparing it to the new Salt Spring library that was completed a couple of years ago. The cost per square foot will be about 38 per cent lower than the cost of the Salt Spring library. We are really excited that it’s a good deal. It presents a very cost-effective way for Powell River to get a library that is about three times larger than our current library.”
Noreault said the library, if it receives voter assent, will be about the right square footage in comparison to provincial norms.
“It’s a good size,” he said. “It’s not too big, or too unaffordable, but it gives us the space to deliver the kinds of services we should in the library. There are only two libraries in BC that have less square footage per capita than ours. It constrains us in a whole bunch of ways.”
Noreault said the book collection is very small compared to other BC libraries and Powell River’s is one of the few that does not have a meeting room. After 5:30 pm, there are no publicly available meeting rooms in the city, he said.
Encouragement of literacy for children and youth is also made more difficult by the current library’s configuration. Noreault said these programs typically have to run outside of the library, minimizing contact between young people and books.
Statistics reveal for people living below the poverty line, the only Internet access for about half of them is through a public library. In the afternoons and early evenings, there are waiting lines for computer access at the current facility.
As for books, people get confused, said Noreault, and ask why a library is needed because people don’t read books anymore.
“In fact, they do,” he said. “The nature of the information has changed. It’s not just books and reference books. It’s also technology. We’ve done a pretty good job keeping pace but we’ve run out of space. That’s why we are really excited about the new location.”
About 11,000 visits per month are recorded through the Powell River Library, according to Noreault.
For the open houses, he said Crossroads Village has developed some drawings and preliminary floor plans to show, and questions about the referendum will be answered. It will also be an opportunity to see the spaciousness of the proposed new building.
“I was struck the other day when I walked in and suddenly realized how large and nice that space is and what it is going to mean to us in terms of the services we offer,” Noreault said. “People can come and see this is a good location for us.”
He said there will be very attractive use of wood in the building and there will be seismic upgrades to current standards if the referendum passes.
“Honestly, I believe inside those four walls, we are going to build as nice a library as we could build with a purpose-built facility,” he said. “It can be done at a price that is very attractive for the city.”
The years of studies and numbers of sites the library has looked at helped provide an understanding of what is needed and desired.
“We just got really lucky that we had some local people that really wanted to step up and say, ‘we can help you get a library and it’s affordable for the city.’ The mayor did a great job working with the proponents to get a really solid proposal. I’m excited because it’s doable and will produce a library that will deliver what Powell River deserves and needs.”
Noreault said the library board voted very quickly in support of the project. He said since he’s assumed his position of interim chief librarian, efforts have been made to disseminate information, explaining why the library supports the proposed location and why this library is good for Powell River.
“We are happy with it,” he said.
Kevin Sigouin, spokesperson for the proponents and one of five shareholders in Crossroads Village, said if the referendum passes, it will be a matter of going through final details with the library board and the city to work out the final floor plan and other matters.
