A provincial push to develop common standards about what materials are in school libraries could create some tension between public libraries and schools sharing or hosting the facilities, including those serving the Athabasca area.
“There’s always a bit of tension regardless. For example, we had some school libraries that really wanted us to shut off the Wi-Fi, especially when the last bill came through with the government saying students can’t have devices,” said James MacDonald, the executive director of Northern Lights Library System (NLLS).
“You’re going to have a similar situation I imagine with this announcement, but that will really depend on the community,” said MacDonald.
Provincial education minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced a survey on May 26 asking people to define “appropriate sexual content” in the context of school library materials, who should decide what materials are age appropriate, and the age at which sexually explicit materials should be available to students.
“The standards would not affect materials in public libraries in the province, including 55 municipal public libraries located inside schools,” said Nicolaides.
NLLS serves much of northeast and central Alberta including Athabasca, Lac La Biche, Cold Lake, St. Paul, Wainwright and many smaller communities between. Member libraries have access to materials at other libraries through the inter-library loan service.
According to MacDonald, there are approximately 14 member libraries located in schools throughout the system including in Andrew, Ashmont, Glendon, Grassland, Mallaig, and Myrnam. In some cases, the library houses both a school collection and a public collection.
“I'd say the majority of the time the school is very, very dependent upon the public library for a library collection. They often don't put very much money into a school library collection,” said MacDonald.
According to Nicolaides, the province will work with school boards to ensure policies are in place by the start of the 2025-26 school year.
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