The federal government is cutting funding to the Community Access Program (CAP) starting in 2013.
The CAP is a program that provides public Internet and technology access at libraries and community centres across the country.
The funding cut will be felt strongly at the Olds Municipal Library, which is a popular Internet access centre in the community.
“Most days, you can come in here and there's hardly a space open in the tech zone. After school, a lot of the kids and students come down to use the computers. During the day, we have a lot of people with developmental disabilities that come in,” said Lesley Winfield, Olds Municipal Library manager.
“Seniors come in, people that are looking for jobs come in during the day. There are a lot of people that live in the county as well that are on dial-up and they rely on our Internet connection and our computers in order to actually just even access their email accounts.”
According to a graph posted on Lesley Winfield's library blog, the Olds Municipal Library Internet sessions number has more than doubled in the last three years, going from 8,339 in 2008, to 20,968 in 2011.
“In the first quarter of 2012, we have recorded 5,300 Internet sessions,” said Winfield.
“We are looking at growth again this year.”
CAP enabled the library to change its computers every three years and to update all the software.
“This year, what the CAP funding means for us is two new computers and laptops,” said Winfield.
“We have used it to buy special readers in the past for our visually-impaired patrons,” said Winfield.
“We have had a year where we spent the money on assisted technology, so we had touch-screen monitors and large-print e-boards.”
Since most of the 12 present computers were bought at the same time, they will become outdated at the same time.
“We won't be able to buy all new computers at the same time, obviously,” said Winfield.
“We have a plan to replace at least three every year.”
Just like all the other Canadian libraries, Olds Municipal Library will have to get more funding from existing sources.
“Because we don't have that federal grant program which comes to us on a regular basis, the burden will then fall to trying to find the money from municipal sources, provincial sources, or fundraising efforts,” said Winfield.
Winfield says she doesn't know what the CAP funding cut will mean for next year's budget.
“Things like power, gas, and phones never go away. You can't really cut the budget in that area in order to make up for this area,” she said.
“Things like programs and books budgets suffer when you try to squish it all together into this tiny little budget.”
