February 09, 2023
The library staff and administration team at Haliburton County Public Library (HCPL) were excited to welcome our new, incoming library Board in early January. These nine members include four appointed public members, four elected members from each municipality who also sit on County Council, and the Warden of Haliburton County, who sits as an ex officio member. At our first meeting on January 11th, a Board Chair and Vice Chair was nominated and chosen.
A warm welcome to the new Board members of the Haliburton County Public Library!
Library Board members serve a 4-year term and attend a minimum of 10 meetings per year. Typically, we break from meeting in July and August. Such a board in Ontario is guided by the Public Libraries Act, R.S.O 1900, c. P44, which indicates that public libraries in our province must be operated under the management and control of a public library board. It’s the legal authority providing governance, decision-making, accountability, policy creation and review, and it’s also the Board’s role to oversee and monitor the library’s performance. Put simply, while the library Board doesn’t exist to run the library, it ensures that the library is properly run.
Advocacy, fundraising, and the review and development of library policies are some of the key areas the Board may focus on through the year. Various working committees will be formed to address these important parts of library life, and our 2022-2027 Strategic Plan and the Annual Work Plan will help guide the progress. As well, the new board members will tour our library system’s branches, approve financial statements once they’re presented by the auditors, and review and approve regular and special reports, such as the annual Facilities Report. The Board also reviews branch opening hours and the fees we charge, and it will confirm holiday closures. A substantial task is to discuss, draft, and approve the next years’ budget, and this is usually started in September. The year wraps up by appraising the CEO’s performance and completing a Board evaluation, as the members provide feedback about the effectiveness of the Board.
Over the course of the next 9 board meetings this year, administrative library staff will make presentations explaining their role and providing updates in key areas such as collections, technology and systems, marketing and communications, or programming and outreach. As you can imagine, ongoing communication between a library’s board, staff, and patrons is important to the functioning of a high-quality library service. Internal and external communications are something we spend a lot of time on. As we often say, there’s not much point in putting effort into creating great library programs and services if community members aren’t made aware of them! Another communication pipeline occurs between the library board and the local councils. In June we’ll publish the HCPL Annual Report. This will be a mid-year snapshot of our accomplishments thus far, and the Board Chair and library CEO will present this as a delegation to our four municipal councils, plus the County council. It’s an opportunity to discuss library service publicly and answer questions the representatives may have about our operations or strategies.
Of course, Haliburton County Public Library doesn’t operate as a standalone library system, even with its 8 service points. We are members of several library organizations such as the Federation of Public Libraries (FOPL), the Administrators of Rural and Urban Public Libraries of Ontario (ARUPLO), the Ontario Library Consortium (OLC), the Ontario Library Service (OLS), and the Ontario Library Association (OLA). These groups help provide organizational guidelines, staff training, board orientation, and so many other things that a busy library may be unable to tackle on their own. Memberships in library organizations help us advocate for public libraries and their funding at all levels of government, but they often increase our collective purchasing power for software and digital platforms that all libraries may use. It’s the reason, for example, why a library of our size is able to negotiate cost-effective access to over 90,000 eBooks and audioBooks.
The field of librarianship is characterized by a high degree of information sharing. The library CEOs at Ontario libraries meet online regularly and discuss ideas, challenges, and approaches on an active email Listserv, to support each other. Conferences are organized so that staff at all levels of public libraries can attend, present, and learn new methods and concepts from colleagues. It’s a place to debate and discuss the challenges of the profession, and hopefully find renewed inspiration along with solutions.
In fact, some of our staff will be representing Haliburton County Public Library at OLA’s library ‘SuperConference’ in Toronto this month. This will be our first in-person conference appearance since 2019. Our Tech and Systems Librarian will give a presentation about the digital accessibility aspects of our library’s new website. The presentation is titled ‘Practical Digital Accessibility for Public Library Websites,’ and we’ll be co-presenting with staff from the web development company we worked with last winter.
In summary, many committed people are involved in planning, overseeing, and running a great public library. We thrive on feedback from our community, and we love to see people signing up for new library memberships. Each person who shows up to run or attend a program, or simply uses a library’s services, makes the organization better and our community stronger. Libraries really are community hubs, or the municipal living room, or the heart of a town – call us what you like, but we hope you’ll stop by and see us this year. It would be great to welcome you and tell you more.
By Chris Stephenson