That鈥檚 the message Assiniboia and District Public Library supporters are sending to the Brad Wall government. After Finance Minister Kevin Doherty delivered the bad news about the 58 per cent reduction in funding to the regional public library system on March 22, he has been on a province-wide tour to sell the government鈥檚 message. Perhaps in the name of efficiencies, the minister should take his own advice to the libraries and consider joining The Middle Coast who are going from town to town on a Saskatchewan tour anyway.
Doherty dumped explaining the library cuts on the lap of Education Minister Don Morgan. Wrong choice. Minister Morgan鈥檚 comments make it appear that he hasn鈥檛 stepped foot in a library since high school, telling us more about Mr. Morgan than about the library system. First of all, the Minister has sadly dated himself. He is unaware of the latest hipster trend for all things retro 鈥� retro 18th century beards, plaid shirts, vinyl records and printed books.
The government has been loudly hinting that the regional library system, like the STC bus company, is obsolete and that libraries should go digital. Again, Mr. Morgan seems unaware that Saskatchewan libraries have very much changed with the times. The Assiniboia library is more than a warehouse for dusty old books. It provides digital resources and its users are growing exponentially each year. Library buildings don鈥檛 have to be full of people for its digital resources to be used these days. A socio-economic study or consultations with library administrators would have told the government that libraries have developed into cultural spaces for people to hang out, hold events, hold meetings and workshops, see displays and offer public programming in the arts, literacy, children鈥檚 education and other fields. The library is an integral part of the cultural fabric of rural communities.
Library patrons understand that everyone had to take a budget cut, but they were not expecting to lose half their funding. Studying the budget and the pronouncements of the government members post-budget, the Cabinet seems intent on closing the library system altogether with such deep cuts that it will be forced to amalgamate with school libraries. Such a move will cause security, design and administrative headaches for schools. This will also place the burden of library funding on the education system.
Another argument coming from government quarters is that no one uses the library. One small community in southern Saskatchewan with less than 100 residents has a library only open a few days a week. But this little library boasts circulation figures greater than Moose Jaw. Assiniboia鈥檚 library is housed in the Prince of Wales Complex, a bright modern facility that is one of the busiest libraries in Saskatchewan. The Cabinet might need to take more than a 3.5 per cent pay cut to understand that for some Saskatchewan families the cost of books (online and in print) are not affordable for some Saskatchewan families. Moreover, many rural communities don鈥檛 have bookstores or money for computers. While the government is excited by the agriculture sector鈥檚 billion-dollar contribution to the provincial coffers, it seems reluctant to provide the rural community a few cultural and educational resources.
The library system is just not the financial burden on society that the government is making it out to be. The entire system only receives $6 million from the budget and it does have other funding sources. That鈥檚 $6 from each Saskatchewan resident 鈥� not much considering the government saved half a million by cutting one cabinet post recently. The regional library system brings added value to rural Saskatchewan in intangible ways that translate to skills and knowledge for the job market.
