To the delight of many, the Fraser-Hickson Library is re-opening its doors Oct. 16 after closing in April due to a lack funding.
The library has rescheduled its hours and is using less than half the amount of staff they had prior to its closure, said Frances Ackerman, the chief librarian at the Fraser-Hickson Library. She is pleased and relieved the library is finally going to re-open.
The closure of the Fraser-Hickson Library has resulted in longer line-ups, fewer community services and over-worked staff in libraries, not only in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (N.D.G) and Côte-des-Neiges (C.D.N.) borough where it is located but on others as well.
The N.D.G Library, the C.D.N. Library, the Westmount Library, the Côte St-Luc Library and smaller libraries like the Benny Library and the library at the Maison de la Culture in N.D.G. have all been significantly busier the last six months since the Fraser-Hickson closed its doors.
"The Westmount Library became a lot busier when the City of Montreal merged and it became open to all residents in the city," said Ann Moffat, the head librarian. "But it also got busier with the closure of the Fraser-Hickson because the kind of readers that went there are the same as at the Westmount and we have similar resources," she said.
Despite closing the doors in April, people are continuing to show up daily at the Fraser-Hickson Library, said Ackerman. "We redirect them to the closest libraries, but they are frustrated that their local library is out of service." Fortunately, this will not be the case much longer, she said.
"I was speaking with the director from the Côte St-Luc Library today and she can't wait for us to re-open so that her staff can be relieved from the extra demand they are experiencing," said Ackerman.
The Westmount and Côte St-Luc libraries have dealt with such an overflow and increased demand on their services that their respective boroughs, in addition to the N.D.G/C.D.N. borough, will be contributing a third of the cost of money needed to re-open the Fraser-Hickson Library, Ackerman said.
Another third of the money will come from the city of Montreal. The remaining costs will come from private foundations, she said.
Van Be Lam, the head of the division of culture and libraries for the N.D.G./C.D.N. borough was unavailable to comment. However, his public relations officer, François Puchin said more than "700,000 books were lent to the public from the three public libraries in the N.D.G./C.D.N. borough combined last year, making it the borough with the highest borrow rate among all 27 boroughs."
It is because the borrow rate is so high that it is important to provide more adequate library services to the residents of N.D.G./C.D.N., which is one of the most populated boroughs with 163,000 inhabitants, Puchin said.
In addition to the re-opening of the Fraser-Hickson, the N.D.G./C.D.N. borough will also be creating a new library scheduled to open in fall 2005 at 6767 Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges, which will include a community centre in the same building, he said.
The independent Fraser-Hickson Library was closed April 15 after more than 100 years of public service.
It had operated on an endowment left by its founder Hugh Fraser that had been dwindling since 1995.
The library provided free services for its members until 2001 when it was forced to start charging members a $25 membership fee to help with its growing deficit.
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