JasonParis
Moderator
Shelving assistant Gabriela Rachkova, 17, restocks books at the soon to be re-opened Jane/Dundas Branch.
Despite tough times, our libraries thrive
January 17, 2008
Bruce DeMara
Entertainment Reporter
Combine architectural excellence with community input and, even in the toughest of economic times, you can't keep a world-class public library system down.
Ten years after amalgamation, the Toronto Public Library is undergoing a modest building boom, using a successful strategy that reaches out and continues to draw in more city residents: both the established and newly arrived.
"The system is thriving," says city librarian Josephine Bryant. "Library service has improved for all residents across the city in spite of a very difficult environment."
In fact, it continues to set the benchmark for the world, with its openness to all residents.
On a per-capita basis, the city's 99 branches are the busiest and most utilized by its citizenry around the globe, lending out more than 30 million books and other materials annually.
From a relatively modest capital budget of $18.3 million in 2008, the library system will see seven major expansion projects completed throughout the year, with the first – at Jane St. and Dundas St. W. – slated to reopen on Feb. 4.
Additionally, the Toronto Reference Library is in the midst of a $30 million expansion to roll out over the next decade.
The formula for growth is simple: get city council approval, hire an architect and go to the community right away, inviting input through open houses where conceptual drawings can be viewed and questions answered face to face.
The dividends include library branches with better-designed, expanded spaces and greater public use, Bryant says.
Residents' use of upgraded library space usually goes up as much as 40 per cent, but the Malvern District Library saw an 80 per cent hike in usage.
"The excitement of the building project, that something very positive was happening in the community, and the excellence of the reworked design and the architecture, creates a pride of ownership and excitement," Bryant says.
The other major reason why library use is rising is found in the partnerships with other agencies.
The Toronto Board of Education uses library space to provide English-as-a-second-language classes, allowing new Canadians to learn about the library services available in their communities.
A recent partnership with Citizenship and Immigration Canada does the same, with settlement workers providing orientation programs at local branches.
That builds on the library system's traditional services: providing study materials for students, computers for Internet access, and other resources for those seeking to upgrade skills or for job hunting.
"Libraries ... are conducive to quiet study and getting work done. There are many, many people who are upgrading and changing jobs.... We've always had a very strong role to play in terms of life-long learning," Bryant says.
Toronto Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 33), the city's budget chief, says the library board has consistently made the case that its branches are "as important as any community centre in the city."
Places like the Fairview Mall branch in Carroll's ward provide professional-quality theatre space that is lacking in the area, she says.
At the Wellesley-Sherbourne branch – one of the newest – Eric Mykhalovskiy, 44, was basking in some afternoon sunlight while doing research on a recent weekday afternoon.
"For me, it's convenient because it's close to my home. I prefer to come to the library because it's a social place, there are other people around," Mykhalovskiy says.
"This particular library has a really nice open space. You can see outside and the light comes in."
Ngoc Ban, 16, says she uses the branch's computer system for Internet access and does research for a course she's taking at the University of Toronto.
"I can ask for help if I can't find something ... because at home, I'm an only child and I can't ask my parents because they really don't know English. I like the service. The librarians are very nice," Ban says.
Ilshat Khairov, 17, leafing through daily newspapers in the branch's reading area, says he takes advantage of the quiet to do research for high school projects away from a noisy household.
"It's awesome."
Those who said libraries dead should eat their words
January 17, 2008
Philip Marchand
Entertainment Reporter
Toronto culture has its ups and downs, but the city's libraries have always remained solid.
We seem to be, relatively speaking, a city of readers and our library system is supreme in North America – far overshadowing in total circulation, number of branches and number of visits, the library systems of such cities as Chicago and Los Angeles.
The civic purse is empty, but the city has recently coughed up enough to keep the system going and to help maintain that supremacy. Toronto city Councillor Kyle Rae (Ward 27) cites an increase of close to a million dollars over last year in the capital budget for the library, which covers repairs and renovations (see sidebar above).
More should be on the way for the operating budget – book purchases and so on – as well as for the capital budget.
"The libraries are for many young people the initiator of their cultural experience. We need to invest in that," says Rae.
This recommitment to libraries is keeping with a worldwide trend towards revitalization of libraries – a trend that was not supposed to happen. Fourteen years ago, I talked to Vancouver futurist Frank Ogden, who scorned library projects, especially the then-new Vancouver library.
"You're going to find them having the stage life of a fruit fly," he proclaimed.
A 30-cm computer disc that could hold a million 300-page books would replace these obsolete institutions, Ogden predicted.
Today, libraries are more popular than ever. In part that's because they are a prime example of what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his book The Great Good Place calls a "third place." The first place is home, the second place is your workspace, and the third is a public space where you can simply drop in, relax, read a book or magazine, talk with other people. Examples, according to Oldenburg, are pubs, coffee shops, streetscapes such as the Yonge-Dundas Square.
These places are vital to civic life. They "lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life," Oldenburg says.
A case can be made that the public library is the example of the third space. "We're everybody's living room, the place where anybody can come in to access information," says Anne Bailey, the Toronto Public Library's director of branch libraries.
"We're still people. You can't sit in a room all day looking at a disc. People need to have that public space and to learn from each other. The public library provides that perfect venue."
Perfect venue it may be, but what about luring teenage boys who are not big readers and who hate school? Can they ever learn to love the library? These younger males were part of library-resistant demographics cited in a 2001 report Building Value Together: A Strategy for Change for Ontario Public Libraries.
The "strategy" turned out to be creating "youth advisory groups"; there are 39 among the 99 branches of the Toronto library, which in turn led to rock concerts in some of the libraries, plus CD collections of music by local indie bands and collections of Japanese comic books. The Young Voices Writers Conference, held in November by the North York Central Library, attempted to draw teens in.
The event was hosted by Nicole Cohen, co-founder of Shameless magazine, poet Jay Millar, comedy writer Jean Paul and more conventional literary figures such as memoirist Wayson Choy.
"It's a way of engaging youth and getting them involved in the library," says Bailey.
"Once you get them, one thing leads to another. They come, they're in the space, they're in the environment, resources are at their disposal. It's a positive experience.
"For many people who haven't been successful in school, the public library is one place they feel comfortable," adds Bailey. "It's not intimidating. They're not being scored or measured."
In an age where literacy is more crucial than ever, you do what you can.
Libraries Reborn Chart (.PDF)
