Conversations that Matter Speaker Series
HPL is partnering with McMaster University Centre for Continuing Education in collaboration with the City of Hamilton’s Our Future Hamilton Department, on an exciting project. "Conversations that Matter: Civic Engagement Speakers Series" is a six-part public speakers series that aligns with the six themes of the Our Future Hamilton: Community Vision. The intent of the series is to address the feedback from participants at the Our Future Hamilton Summit (November 2017), which noted a need for public education around important community issues. Participants said that relevant and truthful information was important for people who wanted to extend their right to vote, but did not feel well informed about the issues impacting their community. The intent of this partnership is to reduce this barrier to civic engagement by informing the electorate in a non-partisan way, to increase their confidence in their voting knowledge at the provincial and municipal elections booths in 2018.The series will not focus on the platforms of any political party or individual politician. The first three events are planned for May leading up to the Provincial election that will be hosted at the Central Library. (www.mcmastercce.ca/civic)

Out of the Vaults Exhibition

LH&A has partnered with Redchurch Café + Gallery for Out of the Vaults - Water, an exhibit that explores our ongoing relationship with water in Hamilton. The exhibit is now on display during the month of April. The exhibit is the second collaboration between HPL and Redchurch Café + Gallery aimed at highlighting works from HPL’s collection of more than three million images.

Forest of Reading Celebrations

Forest of Reading, an enthusiastic and spirited celebration of reading, occurred from April 9 to 12. This year’s program provided 2,000 elementary school students, teachers, and parent volunteers from HWDSB and HWCDSB an opportunity to participate in author events with Forest of Reading nominated authors: Jess Keating, Andrew Larson, Joel Sutherland, Heather Camlot and Linda Granfield as they joined us for celebrations at Central, Ancaster, Turner Park and Sherwood branches.  Participating students have participated in the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading program at their school and attend the author events to celebrate their achievements and vote for their favourite titles.  Thanks to support from the Hamilton Community Foundation’s ABACUS program, we will be offering additional events with author Joel Sutherland for grade 6, 7 and 8 students at the HWDSB’s Education Centre at the end of April.

Telling Tales Launch

HPL will be hosting the 2018 Kickoff for Telling Tales on May 2 on the 4th Floor at the Central Library. 2018 marks the 10^th Anniversary of Telling Tales. HPL is a founding partner of Telling Tales.  This year's launch will highlight our slate of authors and presenters for the coming season. This year's Westfield Festival will be held on September 16th. On September 23rd, we will be hosting Teen Tales at Central. Telling Tales is expanding into a year round initiative with a variety of programs in the community and in schools intended to inspire a love of reading and raising awareness of the importance of literacy in our communities.

National Bookmobile Day
At HPL, we celebrate National Bookmobile Day for an entire week but April 11 marked the official National Bookmobile day. The Bookmobile team celebrated with customers and we held our annual Lugnut contest. We hosted a pizza party for the winning stop Greencedar. We celebrated the day on our website and social media posting information about the history of HPL's bookmobile service (www.hpl.ca/news/april-13-2016-bookmobile-da).

With the temporary closure of the Locke Branch for renovations, we've recently added a stop at Melrose Church (86 Homewood Ave) 10-12 Fridays and extended the Aberdeen Gardens stop to an hour alternate Mondays 11-12. 

Writer in Residence
The Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer in Residence closing event took place at McMaster University on March 30.  This year’s 2017-2018 author, Gary Barwin read along with a selection of writers from the residency at this event.  Writer, playwright and poet Kate Cayley will be the 2018-2019 Writer in Residence.  This partnership with McMaster University has been in place since 2012.

Tax Clinics

We are hosting three Tax Clinics at the Central Library in partnership with McMaster Chartered Accounts in March and April. We will be working with our McMaster contacts in partnership  with Chartered Professional Accountants to expand the program to more branches for 2019.

Tuesdays with Morrie

HPL is continuing to grow and develop our partnership with the 100% Certainty project. The 100% Certainty Project is an initiative sponsored by the Division of Palliative Care at McMaster University in partnership with PX Dermody Funeral Homes, Hamilton Public Library, and Carpenter Hospice. Through the month of April, the Dundas Branch is hosting the Tuesdays with "Morrie" series. The series includes three evenings of conversation inspired by the format of the popular book Tuesdays with Morrie. The first event on April 10 was entitled “Dialogue about the Wisdom of Aging” with Rabbis Baskin and Cohen from the Temple Anshe Sholom. For the April 17 event, we will welcome Geriatrician Dr. Christopher Patterson and the series will end on April 24 with “The Journey of Grief, from Diagnosis to Death, and Beyond” with Jackie Storer from the Carpenter Hospice.

Pier 8 Community Consultation

The City of Hamilton is hosting a series of Open House displays around the City (April 7-17) to share and gather feedback about the 4 developmental proposals under review for the Pier 8 Waterfront development. The Central Library hosted the display in the Living Room, April 9 and April 10. City staff were onsite from 5-7 pm each day otherwise the display was static. We had many interested customers review the displays and all were invited to provide feedback through the City's website where more information, background details, a view of the visuals, videos and the short survey are posted:  www.hamilton.ca/westharbour

Update on Canadian Urban Library Council (CULC)

In May I will be completing my two-year term as Chair of CULC.  I will transition into Past Chair as Pilar Martinez from Edmonton Public Library becomes Chair.  It has been a great learning experience for me and I want to thank the Board and my team for supporting me in this role.  HPL has a long and distinguished history of national library leadership and It has been a real honour for me to serve in this capacity.  Here is a summary of some of the key activities that CULC is currently involved in:

• Digital Literacy Exchange - CULC has submitted a funding application to the Federal Government for the Digital Literacy Exchange Program to support Digital Literacy programs through public libraries.   This application was supported by the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) and others.  The intention is to create programs that would provide funding to public libraries of all sizes to support digital literacy programs.  There is an important research and evaluation component to the application.  We know libraries are already heavily engaged in supporting Digital Literacy and we are looking to get federal funding to support these efforts. 

• Public Library Leadership Program (PLLP) - PLLP is an important leadership development program that aims to help develop current library managers into senior library leaders.  Lita Barrie is on the Steering Committee and was involved in establishing this program along with Ken Roberts and Rebecca Raven.  The third PLLP cohort graduated earlier this year.  Accounts indicate the program has been very successful and an assessment of its effectiveness is currently being undertaken. The fourth cohort is currently accepting applications for start in late 2018. 

• eBooks – The CULC eBook Task Force continues to work on access and other issues related to public libraries.   Libraries are encouraged to advocate with their vendors terms consistent with the Public Library Principles for Licensing Digital Content developed by the group.   A couple issues the team is actively working on:

  • The problem with publishers using Audible (An Amazon Company) to create their eAudio books.  The issue is that Audible does not sell their content to libraries and libraries then need to either not offer, or if possible source a US or UK version.  This issues has been raised with the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP).   

  • Toronto Public Library and Ottawa Public Library continue to lead the campaign for Fair eBook/eAudiobook Pricing (www.fairpricingforlibraries.org).

• National Union Catalogue (NUC) Roundtable -  We continue to work with Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to ensure a successful migration to the new NUC, Voila.  Moving our NUC to the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) platform creates challenges for some libraries that are not OCLC members.  We are encouraged that LAC is looking further into issues of access and what solutions LAC or the library community may be able to develop to ensure every library in Canada can engage with our NUC.  It will likely take some time for solution(s) to be developed.

• Library Shipping Tool – The Library Shipping Tool (www.libraryshippingtool.ca) enables libraries to mail books at significantly reduced rates through Canada Post.  When the Canadian Library Association (CLA) closed down operations in 2016 there was a risk that this service would discontinue.  CULC stepped forward to manage the service.  Currently, 2,500 libraries are using the tool more than 70,000 times per month.  CFLA has done some advocacy related to this to ensure the program is properly funded and supported.

• Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA) -  The organization that provides materials and leadership for print disabled Canadians, continues to get CULC support primarily through Governance and shared vision support.  CULC/CBUC Vice Chair, Pilar Martinez, joined the Board this year alongside at least 4 other CULC member representatives.  CELA expanded to serve more than 90% of all Canadians. 

• Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) - CULC centrally and through members are continuing to contribute to the leadership of this organization to help it advance the objectives set out by the Canadian library community during the closing down of CLA.  CULC continues to working closely with CFLA, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and others in setting the national agenda and priorities.  CFLA has been effectively advocating the Federal Government on issues related to Libraries.  Of particular importance right now is the government’s five-year review of Copyright.  CFLA recently formed an Intellectual Freedom Committee which I am representing CULC along with Vickery Bowles, the City Librarian of Toronto. Information about CFLA activities are on the website:  www.cfla-fcab.ca

  Regular updates on news related to CULC and the Canadian library community are posted on the website: www.culc.ca.