The Need for an Expanded Library Service in Waterloo (September 2006)

This article is re-printed from the Fall 2006 issue of "Off the Shelf", WPL's newsletter.

In 1973, the Albert McCormick Branch Library was built on Parkside Drive in Waterloo. McCormick is a 3,000 square foot neighbourhood branch that was constructed as a satellite to the Main Library on Albert Street.

The McCormick Branch was the last new library construction in the City of Waterloo. In the year that the branch was built – 1973 – the population of Waterloo was 41,537. In 2006, the Main Library and McCormick Branch serve a population of over 112,000.

The city of Waterloo has grown, particularly on the west and east sides, but library facility development has not kept pace. Waterloo currently has roughly half the library space than it should have to serve the community. The shortfall becomes more serious with each passing year due to continued population growth and expanding demand for library service.

“The library is a well-loved, well-used civic institution,” says Chief Librarian Cathy Matyas. “Each year residents of Waterloo borrow over one million books, CDs, DVDs and other items from the library. We’ve experienced double-digit increases in use every year since 2003. We’ve already exceeded our 2016 benchmark for use.”

Matyas also notes that over half of the residents of Waterloo are library cardholders, and that WPL has the highest number of library cardholders and the highest use of collections per capita of any of the four library systems in Waterloo Region.

“Given the high use of the library and the growth of the community, the deficiency in library space is a significant problem.”

In recent years, the library has focussed on developing partnerships to extend its reach into the community, to share resources and to reduce duplication by working with like-minded organizations. WPL currently works with over 30 different community partners to delivery collections, services and programs to citizens of Waterloo.

WPL has also focused on building technology-based services, not tied to specific facilities, to take full advantage of the Internet and new telecommunications initiatives, many of which have grown up in Waterloo Region. The library’s virtual eBranch is one example of this.

But space constraints continue to challenge the library, and branch space is urgently needed. WPL currently provides 38,800 square feet of library space between the Main Library and McCormick Branch, but according to provincial standards should today have 64,200 square feet of space and be working towards 74,000 square feet by the end of the library’s 2016 planning window.

Matyas notes that an addition was made to the Main Library in 1988, and that space reorganizations at both the Main Library and McCormick Branch were undertaken over the past two years in an attempt to make library service as efficient as possible until expanded library facilities are built. But the Main Library and small McCormick Branch still fall far short of adequately supporting the needs of a community of over 100,000.

“On average, 1,300 Waterloo residents visit the library each day. We issue 600 new memberships each month. Over 8,000 residents attended our programs last year. The library needs to grow physically to meet that kind of use.”

The WPL Board has been working on library expansion plans for over a decade. Over a dozen studies and reports have been completed, documenting the need for an expanded library service.

“In 2005, the Library Board presented its blueprint for the future of library service in our community,” says Matyas. “The Board proposed constructing two district-sized branch libraries, the first to be constructed on the west side of the city by 2007 and the second to be constructed on the east side of the city by 2010. The construction of those branches will be a major step forward in remedying the space deficiencies.”

Planning for the first branch is underway, and the Library Board hopes that 2007 will see the construction of a new library for the west side of the city.