More than books can be found at the library, but its services don’t come for free.
Sheep River Library attended Turner Valley council Dec. 2 to submit its request for a 3.1 per cent increase in funding for 2020 (the same request is being made in Black Diamond).
The increase results in $3,675.76 more for Black Diamond council and $3,494.34 for Turner Valley over 2019 amounts.
Jan Burney, library manager, said it’s necessary to increase slightly now rather than claw back later.
“Some years we’ve hacked it way back as much as we can and we’ve got it down to one or even under one per cent and then two years we’re up six or seven (per cent),” said Burney.
She said to accommodate for cost of living, maintenance and other operating costs the most realistic increase is about three per cent each budget year.
It takes a lot to run a busy library, she said. Total projected operating expenses for 2020 are $329,661.50, which included all utilities, administrative costs, janitorial expenses, bookkeeping, banking fees, payroll, and the annual $23,665.50 levy paid to Marigold Library System.
Part of the levy pays for new books, which Marigold is able to purchase in bulk for its 37 member libraries, saving each centre money.
“It also ensures the collection is getting spread out,” said Burney.
That’s good news for the nearly 3,000 members of the Sheep River Library. In total, the Turner Valley-based library saw more than 45,000 check-outs since Nov. 2018, an increase in 2019 of nearly seven per cent from the year before.
Check-outs include not only books but also DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, tools, bikes, walking poles, pedometers, snowshoes, and other items the library loans out to its users.
The Marigold system has proven to be invaluable for some members, said Burney.
“We have brought in books from other libraries for our patrons, just over 9,000, which is an almost eight per cent increase up from this time last year,” she said.
Beyond books and other items, Sheep River Library has also been well-used as a program and event space, she said.
There was a 12 per cent increase in programs over the same period in 2018, though there was some discrepancy in the number of sessions and participants. While there was 20 per cent more adult programs with 30 per cent more participants, children’s programs had a 19 per cent increase in participants while fielding a five per cent drop in the number of sessions, she said.
“That’s largely because Literacy for Life was experiencing some cuts, so they had shortened the number of sessions they were offering,” said Burney.
It’s all run by two full-time staff, two half-time, and two casual employees, she said. Many of the programs and events, as well as work like stocking shelves, are done by volunteers, she said.
In addition, for the first time in years, the library board has a full slate of 10 members, she said.
Burney attributes board member retention with some of the perks they’ve been able to include in their budget, such as conferences and training. Retention of staff and the board accounts for $15,000 of the Sheep River Library budget in 2020, she said.
That’s up from $8,000 in 2020.
“We’re finding one of the reasons it was hard to get a full board of 10, we’ve found we don’t have people come on the board to stay, they’re about three years, some of them were only on for a year or maybe two years,” said Burney. “They weren’t able to attend training events because they couldn’t afford to take a day off work to go, that kind of thing.”
Board members are offered per diem payment for attending training opportunities, such as the Alberta Library Conference in Jasper or the Marigold workshop in May, she said.
To help offset part of the costs, the board has decided to take $14,000 out of reserves to pay for per diems in the first year, she said.
The library continues to rely on its Friend of the Library society, which is a separate entity and is able to run casinos as fundraisers, bringing in around $40,000 every two-and-a-half to three years, she said.
It’s through the Friends that the Sheep River Library is able to replace equipment like computers and host events, including its Out Loud series and the speakers and presenters involved.
“They pay for those kinds of things, which is why we have the two separate budgets,” said Burney. “The money that comes from the Town is operational money and the money on the services budget comes from elsewhere. Tax money is not being used to bring someone up from Texas or somewhere.”
