Winnipeggers rally for increased library services before city vote on budget this month

Nearly 100 people rallied at the Millennium Library Sunday to call for increased hours at the facility before the City of Winnipeg considers its final four-year budget later this month.

Operative hours of Winnipeg's 20 libraries will expand by 12 per cent overall, pending approval of the city's draft 2024-27 budget, which would allow each to open on Wednesday year-round, the City of Winnipeg said last month.

The proposed changes, however, would keep all Winnipeg libraries closed on Sundays outside of September to May, and the Millennium Library wouldn't operate on Sundays year-round if the draft budget is approved. 

"Millennium, which is currently open on Sundays will be closed so that … suburban libraries can be open," said Joe Curnow, who is part of the group Millennium for All.

"And we're saying all of our libraries should be open right? We shouldn't have to pick and choose and we shouldn't have to do it at the expense of the biggest and most well-used library in the system." 

Millennium for All would like to see Sunday and Wednesday hours year-round for all libraries and increased funding for programming, collections and technology — like computers in facilities and upgrades to online systems. The group also wants to see more support for the community connections space at the Millennium Library and safety staff across the system, a press release said. 

Coun. Evan Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) said last month a recruitment process is needed to ensure the estimated 13 full-time staff needed are hired, so the expanded hours can come into effect by September. The cost to extend the hours is nearly one million dollars.

Millennium for All is also calling for the hiring of 12 additional full-time equivalent staff. While the current draft budget has a good staffing increase, Curnow said it's to cover increased hours. 

A budget increase of just over $450,000 for library materials is also part of the outlined changes, which would provide Winnipeggers with diverse and up-to-date collections to choose from, the city said in a news release last month. 

Another investment of nearly $135,000 would go toward extra library programming that ranges from digital literacy, Indigenous languages, early literacy and the ideaMILL makerspace.

LISTEN | Coun. Evan Duncan on secuity concerns at the Millennium Library:

"What we need to see long term is two things, one is increased staffing ratios across the system, because what the research tells us is for staffing for programming, for everything that we want to see, increased staffing is the way you get to it," said Cunrow. "If staff don't feel safe at work sometimes, increased staffing is the way to address that." 

"And this budget doesn't go far enough, doesn't do anything to really address that." 

Mary Burton hopes that when the budget is eventually passed, there's adequate funding for years to come to support the community connection space.