‘Harmful for the community’: B.C. librarians sound the alarm on need for provincial funding

Librarians across B.C. are sounding the alarm on the need for more funding from the province to stay afloat.

Librarians across the province are sounding the alarm on the need for more funding from the province.

Advocacy groups say public libraries are at a breaking point, and the spaces fulfill many social and community services beyond lending books.

Rina Hadziev, executive director of the B.C. Library Association, says public libraries offer much-needed support to vulnerable people.

“You have folks who are struggling, who are unhoused, and who need a space to be,” she says. “You have a lot of people who just don’t have anyone in their life.”

Hadziev has worked as a librarian for the past 25 years and says she has often served as a “tether” for people in need of social connection.

“You are their tether to remaining a part of community and, in some cases, staying within social norms, finding help when they need help,” explains Hadziev.

Over the years, Hadziev says, many people have started to rely on libraries to stay cool during heat waves or as safe spaces.

“When I became a librarian, we didn’t have to worry about, ‘Should we keep the library open later so that people can be cool enough that they don’t die if they go home?’” she says.

Hadziev and other public librarians say due to rising demand and rapid inflation – libraries are at a breaking point.

“The challenge for libraries is that even if libraries were doing exactly the same things that they were doing 15 years ago, the money doesn’t go as far,” she says.

Provincial funding frozen

Cari Lynn Gawletz is the director of the Grand Forks Public Library. She says the impact is already visible in some small communities.

“Particularly Cranbrook and Creston, public libraries that had to reduce their hours of operation,” Gawletz says.

The issue will be front and centre at next month’s Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention, where a special resolution is calling on the province to more than double its annual funding for libraries.

The resolution states funding was cut in 2009 to about $14 million a year and has remained stagnant since, while the province’s population has grown by 29 per cent and inflation increased by 36 per cent.

Local governments are the primary funding source for libraries, accounting for around 90 per cent of their budgets, on average.

“Local governments are standing up and saying that libraries are essential provincial infrastructure and the province needs to do its part to fund them,” says Gawletz, who is part of the push to get the resolution on the table for next month’s convention and hopes it results in more attention to ongoing operational challenges.

“It’s going to be really harmful for the community,” she says. “The library is the last free public space that you can just go and be.”

The province tells CTV News it provided a $45 million in enhancement grants in 2023. Last year, the province provided $1 billion in grants to municipalities through a “growing communities fund,” and some local governments – including Vancouver’s – allocated that money to libraries.

“If funding doesn’t increase, something has to give,” says Gawletz. “So for some libraries, that’s going to mean cutting hours. For others, it might mean scaling back staff or targeted services.”