Columnists
A fait not accompli?
It was a dark day for public libraries, the Thursday before the Easter Weekend. Just as business was closing, the Southern Ontario Library Service announced that, due to funding cuts from the Ontario government, it was immediately discontinuing its inter-library loan program.
There is no corresponding budget increase for library systems having to rely on their own inventory to keep patrons satisfied. So a book that I can’t get in the PEC library system (say The Wit and Wisdom of Sigmund Freud) but that is carried in a larger collection in another library, will no longer be couriered to Wellington. Instead, I will have to rely on the PEC library to supply me with something from its own inventory that comes close to the mark (like The Wit and Wisdom of Jordan Peterson); or I have to visit a library that does carry Freud, and try to convince it that I am a low-risk borrower. Or, in the worst-case scenario, I buy the book.
The cuts will affect some 153 participating libraries in southern Ontario, and will cost 24 drivers their jobs. Last year, they drove almost 1 million kilometres to deliver over 710,000 items.
The constituency manager for our local MPP Todd Smith has defended the cuts by saying “while the concept is admirable, couriering books on demand by vans between different library boards across Southern and Northern Ontario is actually slow, inefficient, environmentally unfriendly and expensive, now that digital resources are available.”
So the fait seems like it is accompli. The government has made its mind up, and has its defence primed. The service has already been discontinued. But there’s no sense in crying in our beer about it. The search for a creative next best alternative must begin.
Perhaps we could find another distribution system for inter-library loans. Could they be piggybacked on Foodland delivery trucks, for example? Or Home Hardware Trucks? Couldn’t they just offload my Sigmund Freud when they are dropping off a pallet of kale or a bag of hammers; after all, the Library is just down the street?
Maybe there’s a sector that needs a distribution system that can team up with the inter-library loans people and use the newly abandoned system of the libraries. Wait a second. Did I just mention beer? That’s it! The industry association known as the Ontario Craft Brewers tells us that there are over 270 operating breweries and brewpubs located in over 110 communities across the province, with another 75 or so in the planning stages. I’ll bet you there is considerable overlap between the 110 communities with craft breweries and the 153 communities with libraries that participated in the inter-library loans program.
Many of these small breweries would love to have their beer enjoyed beyond their local markets: the president of the craft beer association has said “the current retail environment has simply made [craft beer] too hard to find.” What they need is a distribution system.
So why doesn’t the Ford government do something to help both craft brewers and far-flung libraries, and resurrect those 24 jobs, in a new guise as the “Ontario Craft Beer Distribution Network, with Added Inter-Library Loan Capacity.” The new network could be sold as a service to the consumer—both of beer and of library books. Who knows; you may get bookworms addicted to pilsner and drinkers hooked on biographies. And the more books you borrow on inter-library loan, the more you’ll be exposing County craft breweries to the rest of the province.
It helps that the Ford government speaks the language of beer. Any time bad news has to be leavened with a sop to the masses, Mr. Ford finds some beer hook, whether it be a buck-a-beer, or beer for breakfast, beer at tailgate parties, beer in parks or beer in corner stores. And as for the overall amount saved by cutting out the inter-library loan service in the first place; well, that’s just beer money in comparison to most provincial expenditures.
I admit there are some details that could be a challenge. Should the purchase of a craft beer be mandatory in conjunction with an inter-library loan? Should a reader be able to select a craft brew from anywhere the service operates, or just from the community where the book originates? How will libraries manage and display their beer stock? Will the system take empties back when a book has to be sent back to its home library? But they are just details to be worked out, not challenges to the basic concept.
Maybe I will be able to get my Sigmund Freud after all without having to settle for Jordan Peterson—and get to enjoy a pale ale to read him by. Maybe the fait isn’t quite accompli yet!
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