Coaldale Public Library in review

Heather Nicholson
Coaldale Public Library

January is annual report time in library land. As much as reading statistical reports can make one go cross-eyed, I also find it fascinating to observe trends and changes and try to draw conclusions about what it all means.
Calgary Public Library made the news late in 2014 with the announcement they were abolishing library membership fees. This follows on the heels of Edmonton Public Library, who did the same in 2013, as part of their 100th birthday celebrations.
All this is great news for library users in Alberta. You might be surprised to know outside of Alberta the idea of library membership fees is virtually unheard of. I know many other libraries are pushing for this change to spread across the province.
Fortunately, library membership fees have been non-existent since 2006 for residents of Coaldale. Thanks to the generous support of our municipal council, we don’t expect this to change. More than 2,000 town residents take advantage of this fact and keep their library cards active.
In 2014, our users borrowed nearly 105,000 books, movies, toys and other materials. While we did see a slight drop in the circulation of adult print materials, this was offset by people borrowing more movies and electronic books — while children’s books, movies, and toys are as popular as ever. Despite the increased use of electronic resources such as eBooks, we are pleased to see there has still been in increase in the number of people coming to the library in person.
In 2014, more than 69,000 people came to the Coaldale library. Library staff answered more than 6,000 questions and more than 5,000 people used public computers. We have more than 34,000 items in the library for you to borrow from our collection. If you want something we don’t have, we can also request it from one of 33 other libraries in the Chinook Arch Regional Library system.
Altogether, your regional library system has over nearly one million items we can share with you. Still want something we don’t have in the regional system? We can almost always request it through an inter-library loan from somewhere else in Canada.
We hope you will come and have a browse in 2015, especially if you haven’t been in for a while. While we are proud of our success in being a popular place to borrow materials, we will continue work to be the living room of Coaldale.
We encourage people to use the library as a space to meet, connect and to learn.