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Canadian Legislative Library Closure Creates Seismic RiftThe fate of the 90-year-old space housing British Columbia’s Legislative Library in Victoria has shaken its 29-member staff, who were told March 16 to box up the collection in preparation for a seismic upgrade that would close the library indefinitely and necessitate the transfer of 14 people to other government departments. House Speaker Bill Barisoff admitted to the March 17 Victoria Times Colonist that a legislative management committee would determine how the library space would be used after work was complete; among the options is to create offices for lawmakers and their staffs. “There will still be a library,” Barisoff told the Times Colonist. “The only thing different will be the location of the books.”The core collection is being moved to another nearby government building; the rest of the collection, which is comprised of millions of items dating back to British Columbia’s 1863 start as a Crown Colony of England, is slated to be stored in a warehouse in suburban Saanich. Acknowledging her 1992 report that states “alternative space for the library would certainly go a long way toward solving the space problems of the other legislative services,” Joan Barton, who retired in 2003 from a three-decade stint as head of the Legislative Library, told the March 21 Victoria News that permanently relocating the collection in another facility would violate the province’s Library Act, which specifies that Legislative Library staff members are “supposed to be able to hear the bell ring [signaling that the House is in session].” Responding to lawmakers’ statements that most reference material they need is now online, Barton said in the March 17 Times Colonist, “There is no such thing as ‘everything is on the internet.’ When you say that to a librarian, they’re too polite to say so, but their first thought is ‘I’m dealing with an idiot.’” “The library was never meant to be closed,” Barisoff disagreed. “We’re going to keep operating it within the precinct.” Posted on March 23, 2007. |
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