A protest at Huntsville’s library showed the impact of recent budget cuts.
The idea for the protest came from CUPE – the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
“They support library workers,” CEO for the library, Deborah Duce explains. “The idea caught on with a lot of groups in non-unionized environments and we were really lucky that the people in our community, our regular users, grabbed hold of the idea.”
Two dozen people showed their unhappiness at cuts by the Ford government that resulted in the Inter-Library Loan Service being shut down. As a result, anyone requesting a book not available in the Huntsville Library would normally get it from another library in the sharing system, but now that request will go unfulfilled.
Nearly $1.5 million was cut from the budget that helped run the Southern Ontario Library Service and the Ontario Library Service North. These were a network of vans and drivers that would pick up and drop off books and other loan items.
Now, local libraries will need to find a budget to ship items through Canada Post.
Deborah Duce, the CEO and Head Librarian says she has already seen examples of patrons walking away empty handed.
“We have homeschoolers who ordered materials and can’t get them,” confirms Duce. “We have a book club that has been meeting here for 20 years and for May they have had to figure out a way for them to meet, sharing some favourite books.”
The Huntsville Library Board has approved a letter that is being sent to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Michael Tibollo and Parry Sound Muskoka MPP Norm Miller.
“Now we have to look at ways to see what we can afford to do,” says Duce. “It wasn’t in our budget to have to ship nearly 7,000 materials.”
For now, people are modifying their reading habits and perhaps discovering new authors or subjects they might not have considered previously.
