By Cheryl Jahn

Library forges ahead following the budget

Jan 31, 2025 | 3:59 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – People love the library and, since 2021, more and more people are using the services at the library every year, pushing 200,000 visits borrowing half a million books annually. And who doesn’t love the library?

“As our kids were growing up, this was a great place to come to show the kids picture books or connect with other kids, trying out some of the different programs,” says Councillor Garth Frizzell. “So there are lots of different programs here and that are run on a regular basis, such as for older kids, there’s there’s mentoring for getting through tough, tough subjects in school, and then there’s seasonal things.”

But, because of such things as wage increases at 2.25 per cent and general inflation, the library had to ask for a bit more this year from the city to run the place. 5.42 percent, or $255,000, more, to be exact.

“We’re looking to make sure that we can continue to support the activity we’re seeing from people who want to use library services in their community,” explains Paul Burry, Library Director. “In the last four years since the pandemic, we’ve experienced increases in usage year over year. In almost every area we get, we had more in-person visits, more website visits, more books and digital resources checked out year over year.”

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But it was not an easy pitch for Council, with more than one Councillor insisting that the library spend more time fundraising internally to make money.

“The rising costs of the library over time have meant that the library asked for a budget increase. There was a pushback saying that we shouldn’t increase as much as has been asked for,” says Burry. “And so we had to respond by saying actually, the library hasn’t had as much increase as most other municipal organizations in the past decade.”

On the capital side of things, this deck wraps around more than three-quarters of the building. But it is not accessible to the public for safety concerns. It’s a lot of unused real estate. “and then that becomes a great area for us to do programming a community space for people to come and hang out and just relax outdoors. And hopefully, it will also be a place that we can use to rent out to the community for special events and parties, that kind of thing. So we’re really looking forward to working with City to get that project going.”

Right about the stairwell here at the library is a skylight. Council has approved a capital project to replace said skylight for $875,000. Why? Well, when it rains, that skylight leaks a lot. And that is a problem.

“We worry about things getting damaged when it rains heavy rainfall. And when there’s a big rainstorm, someone will have to come in and just make sure everything is okay. In terms of if there’s a leak and we very often have displays in the stairwell that feature, you know, original artworks, and if there’s water dripping on those, that’s a huge liability.”

However, other than a replacement, it’s too early in the planning stages to paint a picture of what it will look like.