When Niverville councillor Meghan Beasant ran in the last municipal election, she told voters that she’d make it her mandate to research the feasibility of a local public library. Two years into her term, she’s making good on that promise.
In a few weeks’ time, the unused space in the south end of the Centennial Arena will have received a complete makeover. When the doors open, residents of Niverville will enjoy their new lending library.
At council’s October 1 public meeting, council also voted unanimously in favour of appointing Beasant and Warren Britton, Niverville’s Director of Recreation, to a working group whose job will be to explore the possibility of creating a regional public library.
Beasant says it all began with a meeting initiated by Meghan Hansen, the province’s library consultant, held at Steinbach city hall.
“They reached out to all of the southeastern communities and everybody was there, [including] representatives from major libraries like Springfield and Jake Epp [Library],” Beasant says. “It was a large information session showing the benefits of regional libraries.”
While the meeting’s primary objective was to provide generalized information, a secondary goal was to facilitate a working group which could include members from each interested municipality.
Attendees from the various municipalities have until the end of the year to register their interest in being involved in the working group. At that point, Hansen will oversee meetings which will begin sometime in the new year.
Beasant says that she and Britton will register.
“It’s nice to see that this is being considered important by the [provincial] government,” Beasant says. “They were looking at how many people live in southeastern Manitoba and how many actually have access [to a public library] within a decent driving distance, and the numbers are just not really where anyone would like them to be.”
Should the working group iron out the details for a shared public library, Beasant says the government will provide a lot of flexibility in terms of what those communities would like their regional library to look like.
For example, Beasant says there is a municipal library in Manitoba that lends more than just books and audio materials. There is also an entire section dedicated to the lending of housewares and other items, too.
But there’s nothing simple about planning a regional library in collaboration with other communities. Perhaps the biggest question they’ll have to ask themselves is this: where will it be located?
Available space, of course, is probably front and centre in that equation. As it stands, Niverville has little to no existing space that would suffice for a library of any significant size. And building one would be an expensive endeavour.
“Unfortunately, there is no government grant that [provides] capital funding,” Beasant says. “You’re always on your own to find the space and do the fundraising for [a library].”
That’s why, for now, Beasant will continue to work with Britton on the completion of the lending library. She sees it as taking the first step.
Britton, who is overseeing the renovations at the Centennial Arena, says that an updated kitchen has been installed and final touches are being taken on the flooring, ceiling tiles, and paint.
The inclusion of a kitchen, he says, is to allow the space to operate as a mixed-use facility.
As for donated books, Britton says the collection is already well underway.
“My uncle downsized a couple of years ago and he had a huge library,” says Britton. “His biggest concern with downsizing is what would happen to all his books. So he was very happy to hear [about our library] and we took pretty much a full palette over from his house.”
Other donations have also been trickling in. But Britton recommends, at this stage, that residents wait until the facility is open to drop off any more books.
As for the types of books they’ll accept, Beasant says every genre is welcome.
“That is the point of a library,” Beasant says. “To have a lot of [different] resources.”
