High costs force Georgina Library to shelve book-lending program

Library hopes to turn the page on inter-library loan program

Yorkregion.com
June 20, 2019
Amanda Persico

Waiting for a hard-to-find book from another library? You might just have to keep on keepin’ on as the inter-library loan program in Georgina is still on hold.

The inter-library loan program, run by Southern Ontario Library Service (SOLS) and Ontario Library Service -- North (OLSN), shuttled books, movies, DVDs, hard-to-find editions, limited series and research material between libraries big and small across the province.

In 2017, Georgina Public Library cardholders borrowed more than 1,800 items that could not be found within the library’s own 175,000 items.

And more than 3,400 Georgina Public Library items were loaned out to smaller libraries across the province.

“Not every library has that particular book,” said acting library services director and CEO, Valerie Stevens.

“The inter-library loan program was about resource sharing.”

Instead of purchasing older books, the library can purchase newer titles, she added.

“Someone is still reading those older books, or someone is wanting to watch an entire TV series,” Stevens said.

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Funded through Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism and Culture, SOLS is responsible for co-ordinating the hundreds of thousands of items borrowed between libraries.

In April, the provincial government slashed SOLS and OLSN funding by more than 50 per cent, putting the loaning program on the shelf.

Earlier this month, the program was reinstated, but libraries are to use Canada Post instead of the previous network of delivery fleet.

Without knowing costs, the inter-library loan program is still suspended in Georgina.

“We don’t know how we can pay for it,” Stevens said “We’re in the middle of a fiscal year. We don’t know how much it will cost and where the money will come from.”

There is also concern how this move will impact the dozens of book clubs offered by the library. For now, Georgina’s book clubs will copy book lists read in other book clubs across the region, since those books are already there.

In 2017, more than 383,000 items were loaned in Ontario through the inter-library loan program.

The province has set aside about $340,000, to be redistributed back to the lending library based on total volume.

That amounts to less than $1 per item.

Under the new model, it would cost $1.34 per item to be sent to anywhere in central Ontario -- from Port Hope to Hamilton, Niagara to Collingwood.

Outside of that area, and sending items to Toronto, would cost $2.25.

Previously, 60 per cent of Georgina’s inter library loans were sent beyond central Ontario, Stevens said.

Prices do not include shipping supplies such as: bubble wrap; printing address and return labels; large envelopes or boxes; or gas expenses to drop off or pick up items to the local post office.

Not to mention, entering the data required for Canada Post, weighing and measuring the parcel takes about three times as long -- 6.5 minutes -- Stevens said, and is to be done by library staff.

Under the previous program, the library used reusable canvass bags and items were picked up in a designated box at the back of the building.