A couple stories of the importance of being able to “go viral” in the digital age. Today was Budget Day in Saskatchewan and it was confirmed that, after being cut by $5 million last year, the library funding that was restored after public outcry, would remain in place, leaving library funding stable, at least for […]
Good to see that the organization comprised of urban municipalities across Saskatchewan passed a resolution at their recent convention calling for members to advocate for increased funding for public libraries. Therefore be it resolved that the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association advocate the Government of Saskatchewan to adequately fund the public library system to keep pace […]
It was a fairly last minute decision but after debating back and forth for the past couple months, after library funding was restored, I decided to apply to attend the Sask Library Association conference in Waskesiu. (I know the conference location was probably picked 18-24 months ago but the optics of having a conference at a […]
So, during the fight against the library cuts over the past month, one of the things I wanted to do was try to compile some of the best approaches and strategies that I’d learned in an Advocacy class while doing my Masters of Library Science, various tips from many of the very experienced library leaders across the country […]
Like I said yesterday, I’ll probably stop tagging every post with #skpoli #saveSKLibraries fairly soon. But in the meantime, I have ideas for at least a couple more posts in the hopper though. For instance, I came across this picture and thought it was a nice “full circle” picture – a shot from February 2010 […]
Hopefully Saskatchewan’s public libraries will never have to go through what we just went through over the past month ever again. But I thought I’d try to document some of the various events and happenings during the multi-pronged resistance to the massive library cuts in the 2017 Saskatchewan budget (which ultimately led to the cuts being reversed […]
So, almost unbelievably, after a month of incredible pushback from all levels – grassroots activists and elected MLAs, rural and urban citizens, library staff and supporters, and numerous others across the province and beyond – the Sask Party announced that they were restoring *all* funding to Saskatchewan public libraries that was cut in the March […]
Former Reform MP and first leader of the Sask Party, Elwin Hermanson, came out of the woodwork (there’s a Hermanson/hermit pun in there somewhere) recently to weigh in on the backlash to the Sask Party’s cuts to public libraries… It’s hard to know where to start with such a clueless and misinformed post. But I’ll try… […]
Good news for library supporters across Saskatchewan today as Premier Brad Wall has asked Education Minister Don Morgan to review the cuts to libraries that were announced in the budget a month ago! Nothing is guaranteed from this review of course and libraries could end up with anything from a full restoration of funding, partial […]
As usual, Tammy Robert has done some excellent journalism in writing about the history of libraries in the province, the parallels to arguments to earlier times when libraries were falsely attacked for being outdated or bad investments, and how the current government has long voiced support for libraries which makes their recent cuts especially nonsensical. […]
