There's A Good Reason Canadians Won't Give Up Their Libraries

Posted: 06/06/2016 2:16 pm EDT Updated: 06/06/2016 2:59 pm EDT

Jean-Pierre Lescourret via Getty Images

By Craig and Marc Kielburger

If you really want to rile up a Canadian, threaten to take away their library.

Craig got his first taste of activism speaking out to save our local library. We've noticed ever since then that when provinces and cities experience a budget crunch, libraries are often first on the chopping block. Yet invariably, citizen rise up to protect them from extinction.

Newfoundland's plan to shutter more than half its public libraries sparked a recent protest by thousands at the provincial legislature. Comedian and commentator Rick Mercer lambasted the government with one of his trademark rants.

Libraries are so much more than just repositories for books.

When the town council of McNab-Braeside, a rural community near Ottawa, decided to cancel an arrangement that gave residents free access to the library in the neighbouring town of Arnprior, almost a third of the entire township signed a petition in protest. Then they voted out all five councillors in the next election.

In the age of e-readers, search engines and Wikipedia, why do Canadians still cling so tenaciously to these seemingly archaic institutions? Because libraries are so much more than just repositories for books.

Canada's libraries are vital community hubs with an ever-growing range of beneficial programs and services. Perhaps more relevant today than ever before, they are community institutions worth fighting for.

In McNab-Braeside, resident Brian Armisen tells us he couldn't imagine his community without the variety of services the Arnprior library offers. Armisen helped launch the campaign to save the library, and now serves as deputy mayor. Beyond free Wi-Fi and access to computers, there is a daytime storytelling program for preschoolers that not only promotes early childhood literacy, but provides a coveted social opportunity for stay-at-home moms and dads. A partnership with the town museum introduces school groups to local history.

There's a wealth of services and programs at Canadian libraries, like first aid and child health classes, financial literacy, and support for new Canadians such as English language programs, says Sandra Singh, chief librarian of the Vancouver Public Library and president of the Canadian Libraries Association.

With electronic media replacing books as the primary way information is shared in our society, libraries are at the forefront of digital technology. Whether you're a high school student keen on software coding or a senior who just wants to learn to use email to talk to your grandkids, your local library likely has a course to help you.

The newly upgraded Halifax Central Library boasts music recording studios with free access to digital sound editing equipment. Last summer, the Vancouver Central Library opened its "Inspiration Lab" featuring computers with the latest in video, audio and publishing software and gadgets. Visitors to the Toronto Reference Library can use 3D printers.

As urban communities sprawl and public spaces dwindle, Singh argues that libraries fill an increasingly needed role as community hubs. Many now feature cafes and auditoriums. The Arnprior institution has bookshelves that roll aside to make room for concerts and speaking events throughout the year.

"Libraries are about the only free public spaces left in our society where you're not a consumer, pressured to buy something," says Singh.

Perhaps most importantly, libraries provide their programs and services to those who are often marginalized or can't afford to go elsewhere for enrichment. And it's not just knowledge that libraries give to those in need. A pioneer of the sharing economy, the library lending model is expanding to create greater community access to other useful things through innovative initiatives like toy and tool libraries. We agree with Singh that libraries really are a tremendous equalizing force.

When was the last time you or your kids visited a local library to see what it has to offer? You might be surprised to discover that, far from being a community dinosaur, it's the coolest place in town.

Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity, Free The Children, the social enterprise, Me to We, and the youth empowerment movement, We Day. Visit we.org for more information.

Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook

MORE ON HUFFPOST:



Calgary's New Central Public Library





Take a tour of the final design drawings for Calgary's new central public library.
A view of the Plus 15 that will span 8 Avenue.
A view of the exterior at night.
The Grand Atrium
Another view of the Grand Atrium.
A youth and teen area.
A theatre for classes and lectures.
NEXT: Books that are popular amongst Facebook users.
Author: Barbara Kingsolver Pages: 576 Percentage of list: 3.39 per cent The one-liner: "A story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959."
Author: Orson Scott Card Pages: 352 Percentage of list: 3.53 per cent The one-liner: "In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers."
Author Khaled Hosseini Pages: 400 Percentage of list: 3.67 per cent The one-liner: "Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan’s decent into fanaticism."
Author: Lois Lowry Pages: 192 Percentage of list: 3.88 per cent The one-liner: "When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth."
Author: L.M. Montgomery Pages: 497 Percentage of list: 3.95 per cent The one-liner: "When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables send for a boy orphan to help them out at the farm, they are in no way prepared for the error that will change their lives. The mistake takes the shape of Anne Shirley, a redheaded 11-year-old girl who can talk anyone under the table."
Author: Paulo Coelho Pages: 197 Percentage of list: 4.01 per cent The one-liner: "The magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found."
Author: C. S. Lewis Pages: 208 Percentage of list: 4.05 per cent The one-liner: "Four adventurous siblings step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch."
Author: Margaret Atwood Pages: 311 Percentage of list: 4.27 per cent The one-liner: "In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?"
Author: Madeleine L'Engle Pages: 256 Percentage of list: 4.38 per cent The one-liner: "Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger."
Author: Margaret Mitchell Pages: 960 Percentage of list: 4.95 per cent The one-liner: "Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia."
Author: Stephen King Pages: 1,200 Percentage of list: 5.11 per cent The one-liner: "A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 per cent of the world’s population within a few weeks."
Author: Charlotte Bronte Pages: 302 Percentage of list: 5.23 per cent The one-liner: "Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester."
Author: Louisa May Alcott Pages: 560 Percentage of list: 5.26 per cent The one-liner: "Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War."
Author: George Orwell Pages: 328 Percentage of list: 5.37 per cent The one-liner: "Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future."
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald Pages: 180 Percentage of list: 5.61 per cent The one-liner: "The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted 'gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,' it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s"
Author: C.S. Lewis Pages: 768 Percentage of list: 5.63 per cent The one-liner: "Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil -- what more could any reader ask for in one book?"
Author: J.D. Salinger Pages: 224 Percentage of list: 5.70 per cent The one-liner: "Perhaps the safest thing we can say about [the main character] Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it."
Author: The Hunger Games Trilogy Percentage of list: 5.82 per cent The one-liner: "The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV."
Author: Douglas Adams Pages: 224 Percentage of list: 5.97 per cent The one-liner: "Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor."
Pages: 1,344 Percentage of list: 7.21 per cent
Author: Jane Austen Pages: 352 Percentage of list: 7.28 per cent The one-liner: "For decades, people have enjoyed losing themselves in the stories of classic literary characters, including enjoying the love-hate relationship between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy."
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien Pages: 300 Percentage of list: 7.48 per cent The one-liner: "Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure."
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien Percentage of list: 13.86 per cent The one-liner: "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."
Author: Harper Lee Pages: 384 Percentage of list: 14.48 per cent The one-liner: "Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behaviour — to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humour and pathos."
Author: J.K. Rowling Percentage of list: 21.08 per cent The one-liner: "Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy. Harry starts receiving mysterious letters and his life is changed for ever. He is whisked away by a beetle-eyed giant of a man and enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard!"