A long-running collaborative effort is making a new push to spread word of its existence and get more books in the hands of students in the Rainy River District.
The Rainy River District Library Co-operative is a partnership between several different organizations across the region and includes the Emo Public Library, the Atikokan Public Library, and the Fort Frances Public Library Technology Centre (FFPLTC), as well as the Rainy River District School Board (RRDSB), the Northwest Catholic District School Board (TNCDSB) and Seven Generations Education Institute (SGEI).
Tracey Sinclair is a longtime employee and current CEO of the Atikokan Public Library and explained that the co-operative’s goal is to ensure that all students across the district have access to their library, even if they live far away and outside of the municipal zone.
“We have a lot of unserved areas that don’t have an actual library,” Sinclair explained.
“For us in Atikokan, people that live out in Sapawe or out at Factor [Lake], they’re not within town limits, so they have to pay for a library card, so the non-resident fees are covered by the school board.”
Sinclair said the school boards then pay a fee to cover the cost of library cards for students, allowing them to either receive one directly from the school or to go to a library and pick their card up. The geography of the region means that the library in Atikokan can serve the east end of the district, Fort Frances serves the centre of the region, and Emo would look after the remaining west end of the district. Sinclair noted that the seeming outlier among all the participants, SGEI, offer the program right through to their post-secondary students, as the Institute covers a wide range of ages and grades.
Of course, gone are the days when accessing your local library meant physically being there. With an ever widening scope of libraries going online, students who live far away from their local library can still take out books and magazines, and make use of other library programming.
“For a lot of students that can’t necessarily get to their physical library we have online resources available to them,” Sinclair said.
“I think that’s part of the goal right now, is to really push for the use of these online digital resources.”
Another benefit of this library co-operative is that students who might be away from their home library for whatever reason can still take out books.
“If you live in Fort Frances and have a fort Frances library card and you want to borrow something from the Atikokan library when you’re visiting here, we will issue you a library card,” Sinclair said.
“We have a reciprocal agreement, the three of us, so you can use your Fort Frances library card in Atikokan or Emo at no charge.”
Many would be forgiven for thinking the library co-operative is a brand-new initiative, but Sinclair said that the program was at least in the works when she took over as the acting CEO roughly five years ago. Initially the program was being very well used, but Sinclair said that started to fall off over time.
“The first year it was really well used, and I would say in the past two years with COVID, our online resources have been utilized well, but not necessarily by student library cards,” she said.
“I think part of it is, kids sit in front of a screen all day. They’re not in a classroom, so the last thing a parent is going to do is say, ‘here’s a screen,’ as opposed to getting their kids to go outside and play. Part of the problem is that people aren’t necessarily aware of it.”
In efforts to help spread the word of the library co-operative and what it can offer, a new bingo event is being held among all participants. The Winter Reading Bingo, as it’s being called, will challenge students to accomplish a number of different tasks related to their libraries to fill out a card and earn them the chance to win big prizes like an iPad or laptop. Once a line is completed, the bingo card can be returned to the student’s school library, and each additional completed bingo on the card will earn the student an additional entry for the draw. The event runs from February 7 to April 29 and the winner will be revealed at 1:00 p.m. on May 12 by the Atikokan Public Library via Facebook Live.
Some of the tasks readers will have to do to mark off their Bingo card are things like visiting their local library in person, making a recipe from a cookbook that has been borrowed from the library, or using the online resources like Overdrive or Libby to borrow an audiobook.
“The goal of the Bingo is that we wanted to get people using these services,” Sinclair said.
“We now have access to 2,900 magazine titles. There are audiobooks, children’s books, young adult books… it’s endless what you can sign out on Overdrive. And with the magazines, it’s just amazing to me, because the nice thing is everyone can borrow them at the same time, whereas with books you have to sometimes be on the hold list.”
The Bingo program will also hopefully bring more awareness of what the library has to offer to parents of school aged children who take part. To that end, a brochure was sent home to parents that discussed the co-operative, what it’s about and what services are on offer.
For more information about your local library and the services they offer, stop in to chat with a librarian or visit their website.
