By Catherine Coles
Coles Notes
October is Canadian Library Month! During this month, libraries and library partners across Canada raise awareness of the valuable role libraries play in Canadians’ lives. In Ontario, we celebrate our public libraries during Ontario Public Library Week (OPLW), on Oct. 15-21.
As a thank-you to our wonderful library patrons, we will be expanding the number of Hoopla items you can borrow from five to 20 items from now until the end of the month. Hoopla gives you instant access to free e-books, audiobooks, comics, movies, TV and music.
County of Lennox & Addington Libraries card holders can download the free hoopla digital mobile app on their Android or IOS device or visit hoopladigital.com to begin enjoying thousands of titles – from major Hollywood studios, record companies and publishers – available to borrow 24/7, for instant streaming or temporary downloading to their smartphones, tablets and computers. Hoopla is an alternative digital materials service to Overdrive, which patrons can also use to borrow free e-books and audiobooks with their library card.
Now back to Canadian Library Month and Ontario Public Library Week… Consider these facts about Canadian libraries:
• More than 97 per cent of Canadians live in communities served by a public library and more than 21 million Canadians have a public library card. (Source: Canadian Library Association)
• Toronto has the busiest library system in the whole world.With 100 branches across the city, there are more yearly visits to the library than to Air Canada Centre, Rogers Centre, CN Tower, The ROM, The AGO, The CNE, Toronto Zoo, Wonderland, Ontario Science Centre, and TIFF combined! (Source: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
• On average, libraries in Canada run on 28 cents per day per Canadian. (Source: Canadian Library Association) • Here in Lennox & Addington our libraries checked out over 180,000 items in 2016 – and we’re on track to beat this number in 2017!
• As a local resident, you are entitled to a Lennox & Addington library card. This means you have free access to our collection of approximately 85,000 books in various print and audio formats, 4,000 movies, 100,000s of e-books, and many non-traditional circulating items like telescopes and GPS units. If we don’t have the item you are looking for, we turn to Interlibrary Loan – and suddenly your library card provides you access to the entire province’s library holdings!
Statistics like these are important but they don’t tell the whole story. They don’t mention the people who rely on library WiFi to run their business remotely or the unemployed who use library computers to apply for jobs. They don’t mention the scores of people who count on their libraries as their sole source for recreation (whether it be reading, movie watching or internet browsing) or those who have upgraded their skills thanks to library programming and services – early literacy, technology, language-learning, genealogy, you name it. Stats also don’t mention the community relationships developed, both between people and between organizations.
We hope to see you out and about at our branches this month – and every month, really! Thank you for your support. Catherine Coles is the Manager of Library Services for L&A County.
Catherine Coles is the Manager of Library Services for L&A County.