WELLINGTON COUNTY – Patrons who access books from other library systems in the province through their local branch will be among those impacted by cuts to the budget of the Southern Ontario Library Service (SOLS).
The SOLS announced last week it is facing a 50% budget cut from the province. The move flowed from the April 11 provincial budget, which reduced funding for the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport by almost $60 million, from $1.55 billion to $1.49 billion.
CEO Barbara Franchetto posted a statement on the SOLS website on April 16 indicating some services would have to be eliminated. Two days later she announced SOLS would be ending its inter-library loan delivery service as of April 26.
SOLS serves almost 200 municipalities in southern and eastern Ontario and provides librarian training and inter-library loans.
Wellington County chief librarian Murray McCabe said the county system lends about 400 books a month to other systems and borrows about the same amount.
SOLS provides courier service between the library systems and also manages the provincial e-book program. McCabe noted Wellington County circulated over 100,000 ebooks last year.
“The cut to SOLS is substantial, as it runs on about a $3-million budget and cutting that in half will most certainly mean a reduction if not end of their courier service,” said McCabe in an April 18 email sent prior to Franchetto’s announcement confirming the end of the service.
McCabe stated regular library customers “will notice right away, as we simply won’t be able to borrow titles we don’t own from other library systems.”
McCabe added, “Borrowing 400 titles a month and lending that many demonstrates how far reaching a reduction in courier will be felt. Libraries will need to purchase more titles or more likely simply not fill patron requests for some materials.”
McCabe pointed out SOLS looks after contract management for a province-wide ebook collection and there is no current agency available to take that over if SOLS cannot continue it.
“The public’s thirst for ebooks and related borrowing of traditional books continues to climb,” he stated.
SOLS also provides training opportunities for small- and medium-sized library systems and, in the last few years, has developed a program to train frontline staff for management positions in libraries both large and small.
“There is absolutely no way business can continue as usual with this 50% cut to services,” McCabe explained.
“Librarians are waiting to see the specifics of the cuts that must happen but know that SOLS operated on a shoestring before this announcement.
“The cut as announced will impact municipal and county library systems everywhere – and more so in rural Ontario.”
