"Best Practices" 1999:
Innovative Internet Use in Canadian Public Libraries

Prepared by Danielle Pilon for LibraryNet, June 1999.

• Community Information and Partnerships
• Local History
• Promotions and Fund-raising
• Interactivity
• Organizing the Internet
• Reader's Advisory
• Web-accessible Catalogues

On March 31, 1999, Canada became the first country to connect its public libraries and schools to the Internet. Now more than ever, libraries and library organizations in Canada are moving beyond simply providing basic Internet access to designing and initiating wide-ranging projects. Libraries continue to connect their communities to the wider world, encourage local economic development, support lifelong learning and deliver programs in the most convenient manner possible. The Internet has become the preferred tool for doing so, whether the applications used are leading-edge technology or plain and simple.

The Internet enables libraries to network with the communities they serve, both literally and figuratively. Library web pages can offer unique local services, or promote their communities world-wide through tourism and local history material. The Internet also allows libraries to ask for instant feedback, offer interactive quizzes, or collect overdue fines online. A growing number of libraries promote themselves and their fund-raising efforts on their web pages. Some even use digital media to encourage traditional literacy by promoting book clubs and reader's resources online.

The Internet also allows even the smallest library to expand its services by adapting traditional library functions for delivery through the Internet. Some libraries produce online resource guides targeted at specific groups, making the Internet a gateway to life-long learning. Some turn their staff's expertise in evaluating and cataloguing materials to selecting the web resources their patrons will find most valuable. Web-based catalogues are no longer just for large urban libraries; smaller and rural libraries are also able to offer them now, often through the creation of provincial union catalogues.

Community Information and Partnerships

• The Windsor (ON) Public Library, Windsor Regional Cancer Society, and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital in partnership created P.O.W.E.R. Surfers (Patients Online for Well-being, Education & Research), a directory of cancer information web sites selected on the basis of the integrity of the institutions and agencies which maintain them, as well as their usefulness to the average visitor. Patients participating in the project were provided with internet access and instruction free of charge
• Reflecting its mission "to provide library services, and educational and cultural resources to the people of northern Saskatchewan and to communicate the uniqueness of the North to other regions of the world," the Pahkisimon Nuye_?áh (SK) Library System has made its 1998 annual report available online in Cree and Dene audio format as well as English text.
• In the last few years, dozens of Canadian libraries have formed partnerships with Human Resources Development Canada to bring employment information to their patrons. An exemplary recent program is at the London (ON) Public Library, which joined with the local HRDC office in establishing resource centres in three branches to deliver one-stop employment services to the community.

 

Local History

• At the Gibsons and District (BC) Public Library, a SchoolNet-sponsored Digital Collection, Westwords, tells the story of the Sunshine Coast through the eyes of poet Howard White and playwright Joan MacLeod.
• The Médiathèque Père Louis Lamontagne (NB) posts interesting brief essays about local history on its website, including a commentary on the origin of the place name "Miramichi," and guides to the fish and trees of the region.
• The Bibliothèque municipale Éva-Senécal (QC) has created a well-annotated selection of links to French-language material on Quebec and Canadian history, organized by era, from pre-European arrival to the Quiet Revolution.
• The Toronto (ON) Public Library is creating a web-accessible database of its York Minutes and York/Toronto City Directories Collection, which includes the York, Upper Canada, Minutes of Town Meetings and Lists of Inhabitants, 1797-1823, the York Directory, 1833-34, and volumes of the Toronto City Directory up to and including 1900. Volumes for 1837 to 1870 are currently available online.
• "Voices, Vessels, and Vellum" is an eclectic collection of digital images and text transcriptions of over a hundred 18th-century documents from the archival collection of the Saint John (NB) Free Public Library, Canada's first tax supported public library, created with assistance from the University of New Brunswick.

Promotions and Fund-raising

• In Alberta, the Red Deer Public Library has joined forces with Chapters to encourage donations of new books to the library through the "Buy, Read, Donate" program. Charitable income tax receipts are given for any books donated within three months of purchase.
• The Kitchener (ON) Public Library needs volunteers to adopt a book shelf, care for the library's plants, give guided tours, and much more. At their website, you can get full details of these and other volunteer opportunities and print out the application form to mail in
• The Westmount (QC) Public Library is encouraging all of its users to submit their favourite memories of the library to be posted on its web site in celebration of its 100th anniversary. At the end of the year, they will be compiled in a commemorative book to be kept in the library's local collection.

Interactivity

• Through the Richmond (BC) Public Library's Library Online page, you can apply for a library card, book a PC or Internet station, register for library programs, and even pay overdue fines.
• How much do you really know about Canadian literature? At the Calgary (AB) Public Library's Virtual Book Café, take the online Canadian Authors Quiz and get your score back instantly.
• Each year the National Library compiles a "Read Up On It" list of notable Canadian children's books. This past year, the theme was "Mystery and Adventure," and an interactive Internet game based on books from the list was designed by a Sheridan College animation graduate.

Organizing the Internet

• The Halifax (NS) Regional Library creates several new featured resource lists bimonthly. The resource lists are topical (for example, March/April subjects included Tax Planning) and gather related Internet resources as well as material held in the library.
• The Bibliothèque nationale du Québec has produced an excellent "Répertoire des sites web de référence du Québec". More than 500 sites are organized by both topic keyword and Dewey classification.
• Every month, the Selkirk & St. Andrews Regional Library (MB) creates a new collection of interesting and timely links — local and international events, holidays, and seasonal pursuits are all covered.
• To support the new Ontario provincial science curriculum, the Ottawa (ON) Public Library put together a bibliography and webliography of Science & Technology resources in its collection, divided by grade level and subject.

Reader's Advisory

• The Thompson Nicola (BC) Regional District Library's most popular books of the month page displays how many holds are currently placed on each title and how many copies of it the library has, plus links to online bookstores for cover photographs, book reviews and reader discussion.
• Many libraries have created "If you like ..., try .." author lists. The Brantford (ON) Public Library has put theirs online and added links to relevant author websites.

Web-accessible Catalogues

• Even if your library can't maintain a web-based catalogue interface, creating online catalogues is possible. The Yellowhead (AB) Regional Library has compiled an online resource list of its audio-visual and other special materials (flannelgraphs, puppet kits).
• The latest online provincial union catalogue is "Beacon", the Newfoundland and Labrador union catalogue produced and maintained by the Provincial Information and Library Resources Board.
• Manitoba's Public Library Services division continues to add interactive features to MAPLIN, the online provincial union catalogue. Both individual patrons and libraries can now initiate ILL requests from catalogue records. Users of OpenShelf, their rural mail-lending service, can order books to be mailed out as well.