Since Airdrie city council's approval of the schematic design of the new multi-use and library facility, many of the city's residents have sounded off on whether a brick-and-mortar library is truly needed in the community, with many citing the fact that the online world provides access to many things that libraries offer.
However, statistics provided by the Airdrie Public Library (APL) show that the current brick-and-mortar building sees quite a lot of in-person foot traffic. Wyatt Tremblay, the Communications Coordinator for the APL stated that 26,480 Airdronians have a library card, which resulted in 170,047 visits to the library in 2022.
"These library card holders borrowed 581,447 items, which equates to 7 checkouts per person for every one of the 80,222 people counted in the 2022 Airdrie census," he wrote.
Statistics provided by the Airdrie Public Library show that the brick-and-mortar building is highly utilized by the community. (Graphic Provided by Airdrie Public Library)Dan Nelles, Chair of the Board of Trustees for the APL also noted that while there were over 39,000 downloads of e-content, the virtual portion is a sliver of what the library offers the community.
"There were over 29,000 people who were attending programs in the library. Programming is a significant component of what we do," Nelles said. "The library has some very intensive and fantastic programs for literacy for young people and small children; [all of these] are highly utilized."
These programs, according to Nelles, are in such high demand that there are wait lists. However, with the prospect of a new facility, the intention is that the wait lists will become a thing of the past.
"To better serve the needs of a city of 70,000 people plus; the current facility, which is only about 12,000 square feet, was designed and built to serve a population - that at the time was closer to 45,000," he added. "We've nearly doubled the size of the community that we're serving, and we haven't had any kind of increase in terms of the capacity to meet their needs. That in large part accounts for the need for more space."
A graphic shows the changes in the design of the new library and multi-use facility to be built in Airdrie. (Graphic provided by The City of Airdrie)According to documents submitted to the City, the new library portion of the facility will total 53,000 square feet, with another 20,000 square feet meant for multi-use spaces. Nelles remarked that he feels the response of residents in Airdrie has been overwhelmingly positive, noting that the library is just more than books, it is a space for residents to also take advantage of technological resources they may not be able to access anywhere else.
The library has 52 public access computers available for use, anytime the library's open, as well as 20 mobile devices that are available for loan to patrons. There is also a high-speed Wi-Fi connection available. Nelles said that people often come to the library to print resumes, look for work online, or connect with friends and family. Nelles said that not everyone may be able to afford webcams or microphones for their computers, but the library offers all the accoutrements with their public access computers.
"We just had a significant influx of Ukrainian refugees due to the war in Ukraine and the library has been a significant point of access in terms of building that community and giving them opportunities to both connect with each other in Airdrie, but also connect with other Ukrainian refugees abroad," he said. "You want to make sure that you have a space in your community that serves as that community builder. The library does that and it's free to do that in the library."
He did add that while he understands that some may feel that infrastructure priorities in the city should be geared towards a hospital, Nelles said that considering healthcare is a provincial jurisdiction, the library and a hospital are not mutually exclusive of one another.
"It is not as though you're going to be able to achieve a hospital in Airdrie by shutting down the library project. It doesn't work that way because the dollars that are building this public library are not being taken away from a hospital," Nelles explained. "The provincial government is the level of government that needs to fund a health care facility. The City of Airdrie isn't able to do that."
According to a timeline provided by The City, the opening of the new Library and Multi-Use Facility is currently set for 2025 and will be constructed on the site of Airdrie’s old fire hall located on Main Street SE.
"Currently, Airdrie has one of the highest-used libraries per capita with approximately 90,000 visits annually. The new facility will take into consideration future growth as well as meeting the provincial standards and comparisons of similar-sized libraries in Alberta with an estimated budget of $65 million," the city wrote on their website.
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