MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Didsbury Municipal Library officials have updated Mountain View County council on recent activities and projects, including the popular homeschool gathering program.
A delegation appeared before council at a recent, regularly-scheduled meeting, held in person and online.
Library manager Maia Foster highlighted areas of service that the facility provides to its patrons. Board chair Melynda Crampton and treasurer David McWhinney also attended.
Borrowing of DVDs remains very popular, particularly for rural residents, Foster said.
“We see a lot of residents, from both county and borrow a lot of movies these days,” she said. “When it comes to internet, we know that rural internet is not always the best.
“Streaming services, which a lot of us think of nowadays as being our main go-to entertainment, aren’t the most reliable our in rural areas, so we have a lot of county residents who come in and grab 10 DVDs each week and watch them.”
Located at 2033 - 19th Avenue in downtown Didsbury, the library offers programming almost every day of the week, she said.
Those programs include the summer reading club, seniors crib, knit and natter, and Country Christmas mini golf, which was attended by 245 people in 2023.
The library continues to have a lot of public computer use, as well as scanning, resume printing, and government form printing, she said.
“It is one of our biggest services and I don’t know if people realize that the public library is where people are going to for that sort of thing,” she said, noting an average of between 10 and 15 print jobs are being done every day.
The library’s community pantry program has been running for a year and continues to be well received. That program offers food products for the taking and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday.
“There are no questions asked and no requirements. It is take what you need when you need it and it’s complete community funded by donations. We’ve seen a lot of use on it,” she said.
Seven to 15 people on average use the pantry every week, she said in response to a question from Coun. Gord Krebs.
In response to a question from deputy reeve Dwayne Fulton, Foster said the library has 1,900 current active borrowers, with 25 per cent being county residents.
Coun. Peggy Johnson asked for an updated on any plans to expand the library, with Foster responding that grant applications for possible expansion continue to be made.
“I believe that the goal would be to help fund that project as you are looking at $2 million to $4 million, but at this point there is no further movement on that, on getting a new space for the library, but I do know that it is a priority for both the Didsbury library board as well as the Town of Didsbury council.”
The library opened its doors in off-hours during the recent extreme cold snap so people could come in to keep warm.
“It was good to see you acted so quickly when the need was there,” said Coun. Alan Miller.
The library’s homeschool hangout program has been running for five years and continues to thrive, she said.
“It is a drop-in program for all ages and it is different activities each week, as well as an opportunity to meet other people who are homeschooling. We have always had a very successful turnout,” she said, noting the library now has dedicated shelving for homeschool materials.
According to the library’s 2023 annual report, the facility currently has 42 volunteers who contributed 2,547 hours in 2023.
There were 38,483 visits to the library last year, with 304 new library cards issued. As well, there were 45,589 WiFi sessions at the facility, with more than 23,000 visits to the website.
County and municipal contributions represented 71 per cent of the library’s funding, with provincial contributions being 14.5 per cent, donations and fundraising 5.3 per cent, grants 5.1 per cent, and 4.1 per cent coming from other sources such as service revenue.
Library staff helped more than 100 community members navigate technology in one-on-one sessions in 2023.
Reeve Angela Aalbers told the delegation, “We appreciate what you do for the community and thank you very much.”
Council accepted the delegation appearance as information.
