Services at the Cold Lake Public Library are now more accessible to those living in the surrounding Indigenous communities.
The Northern Lights Library System, which encompasses the Cold Lake library, is one of the six systems benefiting from the Alberta government's Sept. 30 announcement that they will be providing funding to cover non-resident fees for communities including Cold Lake First Nations and Elizabeth Métis Settlement.
“It is about inclusivity. There has been a barrier, both financial and political, to obtaining library access and now that it's been lifted it's just equitable. To me, it's about time,” said Colette Poitras, Northern Lights Library System public services manager.
Prior to the announcement, those living on reserves and settlements across the Lakeland had to pay an additional $60 fee, in addition to what the library charged for memberships.
With the new model, non-residents will be granted full access to all of the library's services, including online databases for e-books, movies, and newspapers, whereas there were previously restrictions in place.
“We were extremely happy here in Cold Lake. Six months ago, our board decided to pick up the cost for our non-resident fees because we really felt it was a barrier for the settlement and reserves,” explained Leslie Price, director of the Cold Lake Public Library. “When we found out the government was going to implement that for all systems, we were extremely happy.”
The province is providing more than $670,000 in funding to cover the projected costs for the non-resident fees. Of that, the Northern Lights Library System received $150,000 for the four settlements and eight reserves in their catchment area.
“We're hoping, with the help of this funding, to offer some pop-up libraries on the settlement. We'll go once a week and have services for them like laptops, we have remote access on our computers to sign out a bunch of books for them, and set them up with memberships,” said Price, noting that the project is still in the planning stages but they're hoping to have it up and running within a month.
“We're hoping to have some in-house library programming done by some of the residents, sharing their culture and skills, but that will be in the New Year.”
Poitras added that as a library system, they will be conducting cultural education sessions for their library staff and are looking into expanding their collections to include “more Indigenous materials.”
While the official announcement just came from the province on Sept. 30, the funding to cover the fees was released earlier. They don't have any official numbers, but Price expressed there has been a definite increase in the number of people signing up for memberships from the reserve and settlement.
“It has been a slow launch, but since the fees have been waived we have had over 800 people sign up,” said Poitras, speaking on Northern Lights as a whole. “Of course we have a big area. Northern Lights has around 46 member libraries across northeastern Alberta, but that number to me is significant having over 800 people sign up.”
The Cold Lake library may have a number of new initiatives they're anxious to role out, but Price stressed they're also looking for feedback from new patrons on what programs and materials they'd like to see.
