Rather than acting at its September 21 meeting on a controversial plan to consolidate the sprawling Toronto Public Library system, the board has instructed staff to obtain community input and report back in January. “The board received the plan and instructed staff to begin a series of community consultations” that are expected to involve public hearings and meetings with community leaders, said Syd Jones, the library’s director of marketing and communications
Jones explained that when the provincial government amalgamated the city’s seven local governments into a single one at the beginning of 1998, some branches wound up being adjacent to one another once the system boundaries were eliminated. The city council asked library staff to look at the branches with an eye toward eliminating redundancies.
Although the September 21 Toronto Sun claimed the plan would result in the closing of 12 branches, Jones said if all its elements are implemented there will be 91 branches in 10 years, as opposed to the current 98.
Posted September 27, 1999.