Jennifer Smith

I spent a lovely afternoon yesterday knocking on doors with my friend Joan. We handed out lots of cards and talked to quite a number of people who live within a few blocks of the Milton Public Library.

Guess what the number one issue on their minds was?



If you were surprised to find out that the current main library on Bruce Street would be closing, you're not alone. As a member of Milton's arts community, I've been following the the development of our new Main Library and Arts Centre pretty closely over the years and even I didn't know anything about it until a few months ago.

Mind you, it's not like anyone has gone out of their way to let people know.

Just to be sure I hadn't missed something, I did a thorough search of the Milton Champion's archives for any hint that the Bruce Street facility would close when the new library opens. I found nothing. Even in the Town's own meeting minutes and planning documents, I was hard pressed to find any explicit statement of their intention to shut down Bruce Street. The only mention I found was buried deep in the Library Master Plan from 2008.

Of course, the position of the Town and the Library Board is that they aren't "closing" our library - they're replacing it with something bigger and better. Which is true, in a way. However, when you replace a facility in the heart of downtown with one that by all reasonable definitions is in the east end of Milton, you can hardly blame the people of Ward 2 for feeling that something important is being taken away from them.

Such a decision surely warranted greater public consultation, or at least notification. And I don't mean this kind of notification, either:



I have spoken to several members of the library board about the possibility of keeping at least a section of the Bruce Street Library open as a branch. While some are more sympathetic than others, they all agree that the problem ultimately comes down to two things: geography, and money.

The Milton Public Library Master Plan, which was presented to Council back in 2008, shows the location of the new Main Library, the Beaty Branch, and potential locations for future library branches. Each is given a 'service radius' showing the areas meant to be served by each facility, much like the catchment area for a school.



A couple of things are worth noting about this map. One is that the neat, circular 2.5 km 'service radius' shown for the new main library is really only practical if one happens to be a crow. For the rest of us land-based life forms, the actual travelling distance from locations like Bronte Meadows is closer to 4 kilometres. A more accurate representation would be a diamond, not a circle, but in either case about half the people of Ward 2 and all of south-west Milton will be outside of the service area for any library until and unless a branch is built in the south-west part of town.

Another item to note is that the location for the new Main Library/Arts Centre was not chosen because it was in some optimal location in relation to the town's population distribution. It was chosen primarily because the land already belonged to the Town and could be made available. So the fact that the current Bruce Street Library falls within it's service area and is therefore considered "too close" is largely accidental.

One other argument I've been given is that (according to a survey) 84% of the library's patrons drive there, so it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience for them to drive a little further. But what that really means is that 16% of library patrons DON'T drive there, either because they choose not to or because they can't.

How much is 16%? The Milton Public Library has about 30,000 active patrons, so that's 4,800 people who currently walk, bike, or take transit to the library, most of whom won't be able to do that any more. At least not from Ward 2.

Then of course, there's the money.

Obviously, keeping the Bruce Street Library open as a branch would cost money. Exactly how much money, nobody seems to know. The Library budget offers scant clues, and since the plan is to close the place anyway, nobody seems to have bothered to work it out. But here's one way to put it in perspective: for every dollar you spend in property taxes, the entire Milton Public Library budget accounts for about seven cents.

There are all sorts of ways the Town could potentially mitigate the costs, whatever they are. Leasing out the former administration building, running child care, seniors and/or teen programs from the space, finding funding from other sources to install a proper town archives in the building... and those are just off the top of my head.

But even with creative approaches like these, it would still cost something. So my question to you is this: what's it worth to you?

What would it be worth to keep a branch library in your neighbourhood? Two dollars a year? Five? Ten? Maybe nothing - maybe it really is an indulgence with a newer, bigger library opening just a couple of kilometres away.

But did anyone bother to ask you?