The Antigonish Town and County Library saw in increase in visitation and usage over the last
Antigonish Town and County Library
year.
Eric Stackhouse, chief librarian for the Pictou Antigonish Regional Library, shared some statistics about local libraries at PARL’s most recent AGM. He noted over the past year, they went from 75,000 users at the Antigonish library to over 139,000.
Stackhouse said Covid accounts for some of the change, noting they are back to their pre-Covid numbers and are beginning to exceed them. He noted the library is important to the entire community.
PARL just began the process of working with the province to look at increased funding, noting the funding has been flat over the last few years. Stackhouse said they are hoping the province sees the value of public libraries, noting they gave out covid kits, acted as shelters during recent storms, and many other things.
He also pointed to the increase in book borrowing, which went up by almost 50 per cent from pre-Covid, which he attributes in part to their new Same Page online system, which makes it easier for people to get books from across the province.