Budget 2012 - Have Your Say

Toronto Public Library Survey

Thank you for participating in the Library Board's consultation on potential service reductions. The survey is now closed. Results of the survey and public meetings will be provided to the Board at its Monday, December 12th meeting and posted on the website.

Background Information

The Library Board conducted consultation on the impacts of potential service reductions being considered as part of the 2012 operating budget:

• Fewer new titles and copies of books, audiobooks, DVDs and magazines available in library branches; and
• Reduced open hours in branches across the city

Potential reductions are outlined below.

To address the City's target of $17 million or 10% of the operating budget, Toronto Public Library has identified service efficiencies and additional revenue opportunities, which equal $9.7 million of savings or 5.7% of the 10% City target reductions. These efficiencies will not impact library service.

To address the remaining budget target, the Library Board is considering a $5.4 million reduction to library open hours, and a $1.9 million reduction to the library collections budget.

This will result in a 7% reduction of Monday to Sunday hours or approximately 19,000 hours per year out of the current total of 268,124 hours per year and 106,000 fewer new items purchased for library collections, a reduction of 12%.

Potential Library Open Hours Reductions

How does the library decide what open hours to reduce? The principles used for determining open hours reductions are:

• Maintain a range of open hours across daytime hours, evenings and weekends providing access for the diversity of customers and uses of our services (mornings for preschoolers and seniors, after school and weekends for students and families, etc.)
• Provide minimum service levels of 5 days, 40 hours per week - dropping below these minimum levels more dramatically affects usage because of inconvenient access and difficulty remembering schedules
• Maintain distributed geographic access to library resources across the city
• Provide the greatest number of open hours at the largest and busiest branches which provide the most access to collections, services, and space.

As currently proposed, potential reductions in open hours will impact 56 of the library's 98 branches in the following ways:

• Reduced number of morning and evenings at branches across the city
• No Sunday service at the 8 neighborhood branches currently open; Sunday service at 19 research and reference and district libraries remains the same in the proposed schedule.

Potential Library Collections Reductions

• To achieve the remaining budget reduction of $1.9 million, a reduction to the library's collection budget is being proposed. This would result in approximately 106,000 fewer library items being purchased annually, a reduction of 12%.
• As with open hours reductions, reductions to the 2012 collections budget would be implemented in a way that would minimize the impact on the public as much as possible. However, impacts will include:
  • Fewer copies of some titles which would result in longer wait times for holds
  • Fewer titles purchased which would reduce the scope and currency of collections available and make it harder to find materials
  • Delayed purchasing of replacements of classic and standard titles, which would result in gaps in some collection areas.