Hard times at the Toronto Public Library

Bad news for Toronto readers: faced with the city’s budget shortfall, the Toronto Public Library board has agreed to more than a million dollars in spending cuts this year. As the Toronto Star reports, that translates into no more Sunday service for 16 branches (including the Reference Library) and also means that 14,000 items have been dropped from the library’s acquisition plans. The board also put in place a hiring freeze, delayed a new branch opening at Jane and Dundas, cut its Storyteller in Residence program, and made various internal trims.

The police services board was also asked to cut money from its budget, and according to the Star article, chief Bill Blair is balking.

Meanwhile, in this Spacing post, library board member Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler says he believes that if the money is found elsewhere (for example, if council decides to exercise its taxing powers rather than just putting off a decision), the TPL should be able to reverse the cuts it’s agreed to. Let’s hope he’s right, and that council won’t just take the “well, you’ve already decided you can live with the cuts” position.

In other news, the city of Ottawa is also facing a major budget shortfall. No word yet on ramifications for the library system there, though they would seem to be likely.

3 Responses to “Hard times at the Toronto Public Library”

1. July 26, 2007 | 7:41 pm Wanda Sinclair says:
   

   I can see cutting Sunday Service to the other Libraries, but to North York & the Toronto Reference, is a no brainer. Both have Reference books that top all the other libraries in the system. They also have the most amount of computers for the patrons to use.

2. July 28, 2007 | 10:50 am Marilyn Penner says:
   

   I’m also surprised that the TPL board is cutting Sunday service the Reference Library and North York Central. I suppose it is because they as well as Downsview, Don Mills and Northern District, were the largest libraries providing Sunday service, requiring more staffing and heating.

   However they are also the best equipped for students’ needs and in my opinion the easiest to access via public transit. Closing them on Sunday will mean greater demand on them in the evenings and Saturdays, when they have fewer staff scheduled.

   TRL and NY-Central’s Canadiana Dept. have closed stacks, meaning that staff must fetch the books requested. With increased evening and Saturday demand and fewer retrievers scheduled, patrons will longer than 30 minutes for the requested material.

   Increased number of patrons plus fewer hours means more reference questions per hour; but the reference librarians (fewer during evenings and Saturdays) will have less time to spend answering them (and less patience with questioners who don’t know exactly what they want – and with patrons who insist the librarian to do their research for them.)

   Added to that are the cuts in the materials budgets. Books not bought. Subscriptions not renewed. Not good for people who can’t afford to buy them from Indigo or Amazon.ca. Not good for students who depend on the public library (especially TRL, NY-Central and the larger branches – the ones now closed Sundays) because their school libraries have been so underfunded they resemble famine victims.

   Also the internet access: That’s in high demand, and the larger libraries have more computers. Closing them Sundays will save money in electricity; but it is going to impact on the small libraries that are open. Anyone with a bus token who wants a free computer will swarm those branches. Users living in those neighbourhoods – neighbourhoods the library says need to have branches open Sundays – are not going to like that. Has there been a library who has not had at least one incident of a user or group of users refusing (sometimes violently) to yield a terminal when their time was up? (Maybe Chief Blair will cite that as a reason not to cut the police budget.)

   So, the service will not be as good as it was. There will be more confrontations, more staff burnout and sick leave (meaning lesser service for more money), and more burnt patrons more badly burnt.

3. August 1, 2007 | 8:14 pm Robert J. Sawyer says:
   

   Thanks for the heads-up on this. I sent the following letter to Toronto Mayor David Miller today:

   ==

   Wednesday, August 1, 2007

   Mayor David Miller
   Toronto City Hall
   100 Queen St. West 2nd Floor
   Toronto ON M5H 2N2

   Dear Mayor Miller,

   I’m shocked and severely disappointed to read of the huge reductions in services that the Toronto Public Library has had to make in response to your government’s funding cuts.

   I am cognizant of the fiscal difficulties facing Toronto, but if we lose sight of the big picture — of the things that make Toronto great — the consequences will be severe.

   The value of libraries in education cannot be overstated, but that’s true in any city. What makes Toronto so special is its multiculturalism — and it is in our libraries that newcomers to Toronto learn about the city and its traditions of inclusiveness and peacefulness. When you force library branches to curtail their hours, cut back on acquisitions, and freeze hiring, you are doing severe damage to the fabric of what once was, and can again be, the greatest city in the world. I urge you and your council to find another solution — because the current one is untenable.

   I speak not just as a library user, but also a past writer-in-residence for TPL, and the current recipient of the Toronto Public Library Celebrates Reading Award. I am a writer today because of Toronto’s libraries — and I’m a better citizen today because of them, too. Do not allow the great institution that is TPL to be whittled away by fiscal shortsightedness. Find the funds; don’t let literacy, multiculturalism, learning, and fun fall by the wayside in David Miller’s Toronto.

   Respectfully submitted,

   Robert J. Sawyer

   CC: Josephine Bryant, TPL City Librarian; Kathy Gallagher Ross, Chair, TPL Board