On Feb. 5, members of the public talked about what they would like to see in library services at Central Library. The participants also gave many suggestions regarding the library building, such as:
- keep the current building,
- add another storey or two onto the current building,
- build an addition on the land west of the current building,
- build up and over the current building,
- use the City Hall parkade in some way,
- become part of the development along the railroad west of the Main Post Office,
- use some of the other vacant lots in the downtown,
- have more than one library building location downtown,
- have a library building and a community centre downtown.
These suggestions have been made in the past, and the Library Board claims to have looked at them. But the public has not seen any reports that review these ideas.
The library must first look at what services it wants to provide. This was part of previous consultations with the public and library staff. https://www.reginalibrary.ca/cld/ The public views will be updated by the current survey. The summation of these ideas should be presented to the public for thorough discussion and prioritization.
The public should also see engineering and architectural reports on the possibilities of the many options concerning the Central Library building, including costs.
After public consensus is achieved, then decisions should be made and efforts to get community support behind funding options could go ahead.
