Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library

Petition
The Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library needs our support now!
The Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library has suffered from significant and sustained underfunding for the past five years, and its materials, space, and staffing needs have now reached a crisis point. Library users and supporters need to tell Town Council that this must change. Please sign the attached petition to bring about a change and to support our Public Library! We, residents of Whitchurch-Stouffville, petition Town Council to develop and approve a plan to increase per person library funding to the provincial average by 2015, and to begin immediately to develop plans for a library expansion. Background and Statistics Our town is growing at an incredible rate, and our library has not been given the resources to keep pace. Since 2006, the town has added an astonishing 238 new residents every month (from 24,290 to 38,650). Impressively, 55.5% of residents are library card holder; that means we have added 133 new library patrons every month for the past five years. This will continue; the town plans to grow to 55,800 by 2021. Public libraries in Canada play a crucial role for an educated and literate population, which in turn strengthens and stabilizes the community. More than just another leisure facility, a healthy, thriving, creative community requires a library with: Expert staff to find and interpret information; to provide professional assistance with research; to collect documents relevant to the community; to help people from different demographic groups (e.g., children, students, seniors) access relevant information, including information for a job search, for starting a business, and for much more. Leisure and informational resources in a variety of formats (books, digital archives, and electronic databases), accessible to all; Space to read, to gather to study, to research, and to experience. Yet the Whitchurch-Stouffville Library has fallen well below the provincial averages and guidelines in each of these three areas: staffing, materials, and space. These needs relate to chronic underfunding. The library portion of the Town's operating expenses has
dropped from 5.1% in 2004, to 3% in 2007, to an historic low of 2% in 2011.
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| Email: WSLibraryPetition@gmail.com | Web: http://WSLibraryPetition.blogspot.com

Compared to similar sized towns, the Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library has the lowest per resident funding in the province. In 2009, the province-wide average Operating cost for library services per person for communities with a pop. of 20,000-50,000 was $44; Stratford was highest of these eleven communities at $66. Whitchurch-Stouffville was solidly in last position at $25 per person (BMA Municipal Study, 2010, p. 124; next lowest was Georgina with $35/person), down from $28 in 2008. In 2010, our town's per capita contribution dropped another 8% to $23.44 per person, placing us even further from the provincial average.

The 2009 Public Library Statistics published by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture show that we have fallen well below the provincial average for staffing, materials and space requirements. Whereas the W-S Public Library had 9.91 staff (full-time equivalent), the provincial average for communities our size was 21. The ability to buy and house materials is a serious issue: while our library had a collection of 87,558 books in 2009, the provincial average for comparable municipalities was 143,500. (Note: only the 2008 statistics are available online currently). In 2007, our library had 4.73 titles per person, and today that number is down
to 2.64.

Between 2007 and 2011, the town budget increased 80%, and municipal office staffing increased by 58.14%. By comparison, during this same period, only one extra library staff person was added. These serious problems are compounded by higher than average use and program attendance. Performance compared to other Ont. municipalities with 30,001-50,000 pop. Library Program Electronic % Municipal pop. uses attendance/ visits holding library card holder cards Provincial Avg. 794,472 .60 5.08 48.5% W-S Library 884,496 1.04 9.67 55.5% (Based on W-S's 2009 population of 34,775) Thus, while our town's per capita funding for the library has been decreasing annually and is far below the provincial average, the percentage of residents that are library card holders and users is much higher than the provincial average! Unfortunately, each objective municipal and provincial performance indicator available shows unambiguously that the Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library is severely underfunded. This should be a concern for all people who care about our community
PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION TO BRING ABOUT CHANGE AND SUPPORT OUR LIBRARY Online: http://WSLibraryPetition.blogspot.com (or attached) Contact: Dr. Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, Petition Coordinator: WSLibraryPetition@gmail.com