Two thumbs up to the City of Winnipeg’s administration for looking at how it can both reduce the cost of our city’s public library system and improve services. While the city has identified one major initiative – automating select internal services - there are several others worth exploring.

Specifically, the city is looking at automating its book cataloguing and shelving services. By working with a private sector partner for those functions, the city expects to save $160,000 per year. That’s exactly what needs to happen for even more city services.

Consider that when the city contracted out garbage collection, costs went down by 36 per cent or approximately $2.6 million per year. Better yet, according to city data, customer complaints dropped 20-25 per cent per year. A better service at a lower cost - that’s a win-win for taxpayers.

Speaking of partnerships, the city should follow in Vancouver’s footsteps and partner with public schools for the delivery of library services. The Britannia Library in downtown Vancouver is located in a school, but is also open to the general public. Instead of having separate libraries, minutes from each other, the Britannia library means only one building to heat, maintain, staff and fill with resources. Think of the annual savings for local taxpayers.

It isn’t a pilot project either, the Britannia library partnership has been a success now for over 30 years. 

Winnipeg has 20 city-run libraries, many that are minutes or even steps away from public school libraries. It’s time to open up the lines of cooperation between school boards and the city.

Even in the absence of partnering with school boards, the city could look at amalgamating libraries. Compared with “oil rich” Alberta, Winnipeg has more libraries per capita (1 for every 33,000 people) than both Calgary (17 locations, 1 for every 58,823 people) and Edmonton (17 locations, 1 for every 44,377 people).

Finally, the city should remove the volunteer ban from public libraries. That’s right, while volunteers can pitch in and deliver some services at the local library, they’re banned from delivering many others due to a union agreement.

According to the City of Winnipeg: “Each volunteer position has a formal ‘position description’ that has been approved by CUPE…With each new volunteer position, a ‘position description’ is designed, shared with CUPE for their concurrence, and then we proceed with a placement.”

If the city is going to change the workplace, it’s reasonable to try and give its unions a heads up. However, giving a union veto power over whether a local senior can volunteer to read to children is going too far.

Every day in our public schools, community members pitch in and repair books, put them back on the shelves and read to children. There’s no reason why volunteers should be stonewalled from doing those same services at city-run libraries.

The City of Winnipeg is on the right track by looking at how it can reduce the cost of library services. Clearly, there are volumes of savings out there for taxpayers.