Librarians across Ontario are shedding their meek, mild image, expressing outrage at one particular cut in the recent provincial budget.
The Doug Ford government cut in half the budgets of both Library Services North and Southern Ontario Library Services. Those agencies cooperate in providing a wide range of services to all public libraries, the most noticeable of which is inter-library book loans and making audio- and e-books available on line. The immediate effect is the suspension of library-to-library loans until at least June 1st.
Jessica Horne is assistant to the CEO at Cochrane Public Library.
“It’s really upsetting that these budgets have been cut so severely,” she notes. “We use these two organizations on a daily basis to help us run the library and provide services to our patrons. So we have no idea what the total effect is going to be, but their budget cuts, their loss of services will trickle down to us.
“We are encouraging our patrons if they want to get involved, they can reach out to MPP John Vanthof or directly to Premier Doug Ford’s office and let them know that these budget cuts are massive and we’re not happy about it and make sure that this doesn’t happen again in the future.”
You can also follow this link to an online petition.