Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Interlibrary loan service officially ceased across Lennox and Addington County yesterday, one of close to 200 communities across Southern Ontario that saw the service discontinued.
The program, which allowed patrons from County of Lennox and Addington Library branches to check out any book in an Ontario library, was halted as a result of budget cuts handed down by the provincial government. The Southern Ontario Library Service (SOLS), of which L&A County is a part of, as well as the North Ontario Library Service, saw their annual budget reduced by 50 per cent, down to $1.5 million.
As a result, SOLS announced yesterday it couldn’t afford the courier service that allowed the transfer of books between communities.
“The library cuts do no affect the budget for the County Library,” said Stephen Paul, director of community and development services for L&A County. “There’s no financial impact for our library system. What is resulting from the cuts (are changes) to the Southern Ontario Library Service, which we are a part of. They manage interlibrary loans. What that means is customers have the ability to borrow a book from any library in Ontario. That service as it stands today has been cut. We’re just standing by to see what the future may be with the system in a hybrid or modified way.”
Paul says anyone currently in possession of an interlibrary loaned book can take their time and finish reading the book before returning it to their local library.
Though access to any library within Ontario is no longer available, L&A County isn’t losing anything that was already in their collection.
“We have over 150,000 items, both digitally and on the shelves of our library, that doesn’t change at all,” said Paul. “What does change is we don’t have the ability to borrow books from other libraries. Having said that, this provides us with an opportunity to look at maybe new ways to do business and create our own partnership with libraries.”
Funding for the L&A County Libraries come from the county level, though part of that is provided through provincial grants. Those grants are expected to still be available, says Paul.
Of last year’s 200,000 total transactions at County of L&A Libraries, 4,000 were interlibrary loans. Paul says those numbers suggest despite the loss of interlibrary loans, the local services will still be used.
“Our numbers continue to grow on transactions with books being checked out digitally or over the counter,” said Paul. “They’re flourishing and we’re excited about that. We’re planning for the future. This is a bump in the road but if provides us an opportunity to look at things a little differently.”