Collingwood Public Library will still be partnered with the County of Simcoe for some services, but library leadership is looking at ways to do more without county involvement.
On June 2, the County of Simcoe sent a letter to all its member municipality libraries, informing them that they have until July 10 to decide if they’ll be continuing to partner with the County of Simcoe to use their Information Library Service (ILS) system, or if they’ll go out on their own.
According to an update provided on Monday to council by Collingwood Public Library Chief Executive Officer Ashley Kulchycki, the library is considering a little bit of both.
“We have decided to move forward with some select services to continue partnering with Simcoe County,” Kulchycki told Collingwood councillors during their regular meeting on June 27. “If we were to completely end our relationship with Simcoe County there would be some significant financial implications for us locally.”
Kulchycki said some example of services the Collingwood library would be retaining with the county would include the patron and catalogue database, some select e-resources as well as wireless/wired internet connectivity.
“We are looking at opportunities to bring some services in-house,” she said, adding that costing and feasibility are being explored for services such as procurement.
On April 26, County of Simcoe council made a controversial decision to dissolve the 74-year-old Simcoe County Library Co-operative, which served 14 public libraries (29 branches) across Simcoe County to share services, resources and funds to pool purchasing power for rotating special collections, maintaining electronic databases, bulk purchasing, and obtaining e-books and audiobooks to be shared.
Simcoe County had the last remaining library co-operative in the province.
At that meeting, county council also voted in favour of spending $280,000 from reserves to implement the new ILS, which staff have said will help “modernize” services. County staff said the change will realize nearly $300,000 a year in savings.
The Information Library Service will apply mostly to IT support, including cloud-based e-services IT platform, cyber security threat protection, and IT HelpDesk.
The change hasn’t come without controversy, with former library CEOs across the county speaking out against the move.
On Monday night, Coun. Chris Carrier asked if the average library user would notice a difference with the switch to a new model.
“Was the system broken that needed to be fixed, or is this an enhancement to the existing system?” asked Carrier.
Kulchycki said she considered the changes to be a restructuring to the existing system.
“Certainly, our intent is we hope none of our patrons will notice any changes in service,” she said. “No model is perfect, so we’re looking at opportunities to streamline.”
One of the changes Kulchycki noted is the county had previously acted as a middle-person to known vendors, so now the Collingwood library could have a more direct relationship with those vendors.
“We’re not rushing in. We’re taking our time to determine the cost implications of that moving forward,” she said.
