PAINFUL TRUTH: Libraries still unloved

This week I was going through the annual financial statement of the Fraser Valley Regional Library (we all have our hobbies) and one line item really jumped out at me.

The FVRL, which serves more than a dozen municipalities, from large suburban communities like Langley, Maple Ridge, and Abbotsford, to small Fraser Valley hamlets like Boston Bar, runs a tight ship, fiscally speaking. They had a decent surplus this year. They’re putting money into their reserves.

One thing they’re not doing is raking in donations.

In 2022, the FVRL received exactly $41,279.

Its total revenues – contributions from member municipalities, provincial government transfers, fees – were $30.5 million.

Donations were 0.13 per cent of total revenues. Not much.

Worse, the report notes it’s been trending downwards in recent years.

Let’s compare that to the second-largest library system in the province – the Vancouver Public Library.

The VPL – which gets far more civic funding per capita than the FVRL, despite serving fewer people – saw its foundation raise $3 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2022.

It received multiple donations of over $100,000, including corporate donations from the Dilawri Group, BMO, Sun Life, and Prospera Credit Union.

How is it that the largest library system in the province has no foundation, no major corporate donors, no high-profile millionaires eager to donate?

I have a couple of theories.

One, and I suspect this is the biggest problem, is the fact that when people think of the Lower Mainland, they think of Vancouver. Want to benefit a library? Give money to VPL’s foundation!

Forget the FVRL, or the Surrey Public Library, or the libraries of Richmond, Burnaby, or Coquitlam. Collectively, those libraries serve more than three times as many people as the VPL does, but they don’t have “Vancouver” in their name.

Second, the FVRL in particular lacks a unified voice.

There are 14 separate municipal governments involved in the FVRL. The libraries in our communities – the physical buildings – belong to or are leased by those local governments. But because the system isn’t owned by any one community, municipal governments don’t consider it a showpiece. It’s just some regional service, like sewer and water.

Our local leaders need to have a change of heart on this.

They need to understand that our library system does great things, on a pretty stingy budget. Its librarians work hard to offer traditional library services like book and DVD lending, children’s storytimes, and student help, along with innovative projects like lending out robots, musical instruments, even radon detectors.

That understanding, in turn, needs to turn into real financial support. You can measure a community’s real wealth in its libraries, and right now, we don’t measure up.

– Painful Truth is a weekly opinion column by Langley Advance Times reporter Matthew Claxton

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