Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry (SDG) Council received a welcomed update at the November 18 meeting outlining the continued growth and use of SDG libraries and services. The report to Council also highlighted proposed innovative items from the 2025 draft library budget.
The SDG Reads Program emphasizes “One Book, One Community,” whereas residents across the counties are encouraged to read the same title of work before congregating as a group to discuss and meet the authors themselves.
This year’s iteration featured the work of Canadian author Craig Shreve and his work, The African Samurai. Program participants were able to partake in a VIP experience where they could meet Shreve one-on-one and discuss his work. More than 70 participants benefited from the program and attended the main event where signed copies of the text were made available. The event closed with a silent auction that benefits the SDG Reads Program.
October saw SDG libraries host 151 community programs for residents at the 15 branches, welcoming 1,705 attendees in total. 1,606 new items were processed at libraries, 30 books were repaired, and 30 discs were cleaned in-house.
During October, the SDG Library made 33 Facebook and 33 Instagram posts as part of its outreach initiative. An increase of 8.9 per cent from September numbers showed 7,100 people engaging with the Facebook posts and an increase of 33.7 per cent from the previous month with 627 engaging with the Instagram posts.
Additionally, as part of the continued efforts to engage with the community and receive feedback on what services residents would like to see at their library, SDG Library is hosting a User Engagement Survey on its website. Residents of SDG are encouraged to take five minutes to complete the online bilingual survey and provide their feedback between November 11 and 30 here: https://www.sdglibrary.ca/user-survey-nov-2024/.
Lastly, as part of the SDG Library partnership with the Hôpital Glengarry Memorial Hospital (HGMH) that launched on October 8, non-SDG resident inpatients at the hospital are eligible for a temporary three-month digital membership. The digital membership allows users to access ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital resources, free of charge.
As part of their 2025 draft library budget, the SDG Library hopes to attain Square Terminals for processing transactions at each branch, new furniture for the Maxville and Chesterville branches, and provide access to two new databases, including cloudLibrary Comics and cloudLibrary Biblio+.
The 2025 library budget will be presented to the SDG Council for review and approval at the next Special Budget meeting, scheduled on December 3.
