During my time as a Prince George Public Library board member from 2008-2010, followed by my two years as a staff member from 2010-2012, the soul-searching questions being asked were what the library mission is and how a facility devoted to books is relevant in a digital world.
The answer given during my time at the library was literacy, in the broadest sense of the word. Besides the traditional focus on a love of reading and lifelong learning, library staff developed programs to help residents increase their computer literacy, online literacy, financial literacy, and so on. In other words, the library offered useful tools to help children and adults navigate in the modern world. Furthermore, the library beefed up its website and online offerings so residents – whether they had a library card or not – could access all sorts of databases for reliable information.
At that time, security was a group responsibility, handled primarily by the two custodians, with help from staff. Only when the custodians weren’t available was a security person brought in for support.
Ten years later and the downtown branch of the public library is being written up by WorkSafe BC for exposing employees to dangerous working conditions brought on by dangerous visitors and open drug use in the building and the bathrooms. Staff are frequently verbally and/or physically assaulted.
Library leadership calls its current direction “welcoming and inclusive,” with the implication that anyone critical of that direction doesn’t support inclusivity, which is nonsense. The Prince George Public Library needs to ask itself why it must be more welcoming and inclusive to visitors than other nearby public facilities. The Two Rivers Art Gallery, the Civic Centre, the Coliseum and the soon-to-be-opened pool are also welcoming and inclusive spaces but the washrooms and interior spaces in those facilities are only available to users of those facilities.
For reasons unclear, the current library management and its volunteer board of directors now seem to believe the library’s primary responsibility is to provide open access to public washrooms and a warm hangout on a cold and/or rainy day for the city’s downtown street population. Those are noble goals but, as Worksafe BC inspectors pointed out, librarians and library staff are not equipped for those responsibilities.
The Prince George Library’s responsibility is to inspire the community to read, learn and discover, according to its mission statement. It needs to refocus on that essential core duty and leave the equally important work of helping people with addictions, trauma and mental health issues to agencies and employees equipped to do the job.
Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
