Dear Editor,
The TBPL CEO recently made a presentation to City Council on his future plans for the public library. The extension to opening hours, recruitment of kindergarten children and working with local businesses are interesting ideas, but an analysis of TBPL performance suggests that more radical measures may be needed.
The province compares public library performance within population size groupings. TBPL falls within the 100,000 - 200,000 category which includes 19 public library systems across Ontario. The key ratios per 10,000 population reveal that TBPL is not performing well compared to the group average across most indicators.
For example, TBPL only spends 5.28% of its total budget on books compared to a group average of 10.3%. And TBPL only holds 3.6 books per active cardholder compared to the group average of 4.9.
The lack of new books explains why TBPL has such a poor book turnover rate of 1.97 compared to the group average of 4.2. It also explains why TBPL’s circulation per capita of 2.73 is less than half the group average of 5.7, and why TBPL’s circulation per active card holder is only 7.8 compared to the group average of 17.9.
Lack of money cannot be given as the reason for this low level of performance because TBPL’s total operating expenditure per capita is $67.70 compared to $55.0 in similar libraries, and its local operating support per capita (the money given to it by City Council) is $60.9, compared to the group average of $51.60.
It should also be noted that most of these figures were lower in 2023 than in 2022 (for example, circulation per active card holder went down from 9.8 to 7.8), but the percentage of the total budget spent on salaries increased from $57.50 to $60.05, compared to a group average of $56.16.
John Pateman
Thunder Bay
