Public Libraries Section

Country Report: Canada

August, 2001

1. Broadband Task Force: On January 11, federal Minister of Industry of Industry Brian Tobin appointed the National Broadband Task Force to advise government on how to make high-speed broadband Internet services available to all Canadian communities by 2004. Wendy Newman CEO and Chief Librarian of the Brantford Public Library, and a member of the IFLA Public Library Section’s UNET project, headed the Social Issues/Digital Divide/Culture and Education subgroup of the task force. The report recommendations, released on June 18 include that: all Canadians should have equitable and affordable access to broadband services; governments should focus on communities where the private sector is unlikely to deliver services; public institutions (libraries, learning institutions, and other public access points should be a priority along with First Nation, Inuit and remote communities; governments should ensure that public access sites have the capacity to serve their clientele by providing the necessary equipment, Internet access, technical support and trained staff. For information: http://www.broadband.gc.ca/
   
2. Web Awareness Partnership Announced: On July 5, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) and the Media Awareness Network (Mnet) announced a partnership that will produce and deliver a Web Awareness program to all public libraries in Canada. Building upon the research and work underway by Mnet, including their recent study on Canadian Children’s Use of the Internet, "Young Canadians in a Wired World, " the six-month pilot program will provide Internet training to public libraries across Canada.
   For more information: www.cla.ca and www.media-awareness.ca.
   
3. Internet Usage: A suvery of 36 countries found that 60 percent of the Canadians polled said they use the Internet, compared to 57% in the US. Canada’s rate was exceeded only by Norway 63% and Denmark 62%. The study also found that 18 % of Internet users in Canada have shopped online in the past month; most are likely to buy books.
   For more information: www.legermarketing.com
   
4. Libraries rated as best service providers: The Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) recently commissioned an in-depth study of Canadians’ view of government services. "Citizens First 2000" found that Canadians rate public libraries as one of the best performing public or private institutions, surpassed only by fire departments. Perceptions of library service were even higher if the respondent had visited in one year.
   For more information: www.ipaciapc.ca
   
5. National Library of Canada announces free AMICUS: Roch Carrier, the National Librarian of Canada, announced in June that the vast database of the National Library of Canada AMICUS is now available to all Canadians free of charge. Previously it had been available only to those libraries which could afford the subscription fee. The database has more than 22 million books, magazines, music, videos, government publications and more.
   For more information: www.nlc-bnc.ca
6. Fundraising Prairie Style: The Winnipeg (Manitoba) Library Foundation (WLF), in collaboration with an American website, has launched its own online shopping mall to support its fundraising campaign for the proposed Millennium Library expansion. Library supporters can chose to buy from over 120 merchants, including Amazon.com, Disney, Lands End. With every purchase a commission of 3 to 14% goes to the Library Foundation.
   For more information: http://www.millenniumlibrary.com/
   To visit the mall: http://npsmall.com/winnipeg.com
   
7. Awards: The Windsor Public Library won one of the Ontario Public Library Service Awards for Innovation for its new e-book service. It is the first in Canada to offer books by e-mail. During the week, members of the library’s Online Book Club receive a short excerpt of a popular book by e-mail. For the rest of the text, they may come to the library to borrow the book.
   For more information: http://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/default_actual.asp
   
   The North Bay Public Library won the Ontario Public Library Service Award for Innovation for its Virtual City Hall Project which offers full-text of the 106 years of municipal by-laws as well as municipal forms and a customer service center. It is the most comprehensive municipal website in the province of Ontario.
   For more information: http://www.city.north-bay.on.ca/library/nbplinfo.htm
   Barbara Clubb was awarded the Ontario Library Trustees Association W.J. Robertson Medallion as the Librarian of the Year for the province of Ontario.
   

The winner of the 2001 IMPAC award for English fiction, the richest fiction award in the world is Canadian Alistair MacLeod for his book No Great Mischief. He was nominated by the Ottawa and Toronto Public Libraries. He will be the guest of honour at the Ottawa Public Library gala November 27, 2001

8. Municipal Amalgamations: Dozens of municipalities in the province of Ontario are being forced to amalgamate by provincial legislation. One of the results is that formerly separate library systems are also required to amalgamate. One example of this is the Ottawa Public Library, formerly serving 330,000 population is now serving 791,000 people with 33 branches, 2.2 million volumes and a circulation of almost 7 million items per year. Barbara Clubb has been appointed the City Librarian. More than 25 tonnes of material are being transported among library branches each week, 150% more than anticipated.
   
9. Library Leadership Development: Canada’s Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute is held every 18 months to assist professional librarians in developing, strengthening and exercising their leadership skills so that they may be better equipped to formulate, articulate and achieve the future changes required by libraries into the 21^st century. Known and acknowledged leaders in the profession act as mentors and facilitators. The 6^th session to be held February 7-12, 2002 will target 24 librarians who: have a desire to develop their leadership potential; have received their library degrees generally within the past seven years; have a minimum of two year’s professional library experience.
   
10. Internet Use in Public Libraries. The Burnaby Public Library in Burnaby, B.C. has released a major analysis of how the public uses the library’s Internet workstations. "What are people Viewing on the Internet? An Analysis of Burnaby Transaction Logs" was prepared by Dr. Ann Curry, associate professor at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, with funding from the Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources Development Canada. Dr. Curry will be presenting at IFLA Boston.
    "Members of the public are accessing websites on taxes and tattoos, divorce and computer hard drives," said Curry. "They’re reading newspapers in Albanian, sending e-mail messages in Korean, and locating recipes in Chinese." At the time of the survey there were seven workstations available to the public at the Burnaby Public Library. All terminals within the system are unfiltered and all are fitted with privacy screens.
    It was found that customers using email or sexually oriented sites generate three to five times more URLs per minute than customers accessing all other types of sites. Each of the websites in the sample was visited by the research team and was classified by overall format and by subject, where appropriate. The results of the study demonstrate that the public workstations act as an important communications tool (41.3% of use was for email). This was followed by visits mounted by for-profit corporations (15.9%) and visits to sites that were being used to access points for other sites-search engines, subject directories and portals (11.4%). Sexually related sites constituted only 1.29 % of the total number of sites analyzed. No material that might be considered obscene under the Criminal Code of Canada was accessed.
    The study revealed that people are really looking at on Internet terminal, which is not was has been reported through customer surveys and interviews done elsewhere. The Burnaby Public Library circulates 3.6 million items per year-the highest circulation per capita among large urban public libraries in Canada. By the fall of 2001 there will be 61 workstations for public use. The library intends to repeat the log analysis in late 2001. Chief Librarian, Paul Whitney is a member of IFLA’s CLM Task Force.
    For more information: www.bpl.burnaby.bc.ca
    
11. Advocacy: The Canadian Library Association’s second annual government advocacy day was held on March 5. Four teams of CLA Executive Council members fanned out across the national capital region (Ottawa) to brief cabinet ministers and senior federal government officials on two issues of current concern to CLA-the need for a new building for the National Library and the establishment of the Council for Canadian Libraries. A written brief The Role of Canadian Libraries in the Canadian Way is available on the CLA website: www.cla.ca/issues/canadianway.pdf
    
12. Canadian Public Library Statistics: The Y2000 statistics for Canadian public libraries serving over 50,000 population were released in June with 73 libraries of 89 reporting and serving 16,552,141 million people. Key statistics include: more than 8 million borrowers, more than 88 million visits; more than 1.5 million open hours per year; more than 18 million questions and almost 160 million circulations; more than 50 million in holdings. Total expenditures exceeded $574 million CND; total expenditures on materials exceeded $73 million CND. These statistics are produced by the Mississauga (Ont) Public Library for the Council of Administrators of Large Urban Public Libraries (CALUPL).
    For information: bonnie.duckett@city.mississauga.on.ca

Barbara Clubb
Chair, IFLA Section of Public Libraries Standing Committee
August, 2001