Carol and Dick Lyons
Dear editor:
The following is an excerpt from a news item in the May 7, 2009 online edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail:
A gift from a cultural philanthropist family, Bluma Appel Community Trust, was announced by the Toronto Public Library as it kicked off the biggest fundraising drive in its 125-year history.
The $10-million capital campaign is part of a proposed $34-million renovation of the 32-year-old library that already has received $14 million from the city and $10 million from the province.
In addition to a new 16,800 sq. ft. event space that will bear the name of the philanthropists’ family, the renovation includes a new three-storey glass entrance, a new two-storey rotunda for the library’s special collections, and expanded areas for Internet and other types of research and study.
Toronto city council has made a commitment to ensure that its main library (one of 106 Metropolitan Toronto libraries) is ready to address the huge impact and opportunities resulting from exponential growth in information technology.
It provided funding for 41 percent of the cost of the renovation and expansion. It included in its design expanded areas for Internet and other types of research and study. It chose to assign a bequest to a new “event space” to further enhance the facility.
And it has not shied away from ensuring it will be proud of its physical structure.
Obviously, Toronto city council has done research far beyond looking only at the size and configuration of their library building. It realizes that “Libraries connect people to the world of information and ideas; they are infinite in their capacity to contain, connect, and disseminate knowledge; they provide the opportunity for personal enlightenment, encourage the love of learning, facilitate human connections, and preserve and provide materials.” (From The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians, 2009 04 03).
Toronto’s mayor and councillors are aware that the many technologies the library offers will not be available in everyone’s living room and that not all books will be downloaded to iPods. Their long-range vision tells them that the intellectual and cultural health of their city will be enhanced by larger, not smaller, libraries in the years to come.
Their commitment to fund 41 percent of the cost of their library’s expansion shows courage and foresight in these economic times.
Toronto city council gets it. Good on them!
Fort Frances town council. . . ?
(Signed),
Carol and Dick Lyons
