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Bowen Islanders really love their local library

Visits to the Bowen Island library rose by half in 2018 and circulation rose by 10 per cent
Library

When Tina Nielsen started volunteering at the Bowen Island Library, the library was 400 square feet in the old general store, with a wall separating books from merchandise.

Suffice it to say, times have changed. The library’s moved twice (to a suite under the pharmacy and then back to the old general store building), has expanded into the Cove Commons and Nielsen now runs the place (as chief librarian, not a volunteer). But these days, many Bowen Islanders wouldn’t change a thing behind the mock Tudor face of the library. 

In a library-circulated survey, 91 per cent of the 349 respondents said that the library’s overall service was good or excellent. When asked how the library could improve its service, 59 out of 208 respondents said that there weren’t any improvements needed. The next most popular answer (51 responses) said that the library could do with expanding its collection. 

These responses come on the heels of a banner year for the local institution. The Bowen library saw visits rise by half in 2018 and materials borrowed rise by 10 per cent over the previous year. 

Nielsen credits the rise in library use to increased communication through newsletters and the newspaper and the publicity and excitement surrounding the opening of the Cove Commons building early last year: an “if you build it, they will come” situation. 

The Cove Commons building meant an annex for the library, an area where people could study, do work or read and where the library could hold programming, such as author talks, reconciliation workshops or resume writing workshops. 

“We assumed when we opened the Cove Commons and the annex that we would see some growth, definitely in programming, because we suddenly were going to do programming that we couldn’t do before,” says Nielsen, “but we were surprised at how much more it had increased.”

At a time when other libraries are seeing slowly decreasing circulation numbers, Nielsen ties the Bowen rise to the rise in visitation. 

“If they walk through the door, and they haven’t been there before, they’re more inclined to actually check something out and use the library,” she says. “Maybe they came for a program and hadn’t been big library users before that and then they look around and say, Well, maybe I should just take something now that I’m here.”

In a community of just under 4,000 people, Bowen’s library has more than 2,000 regular users (people who have used the library in the last three years) says Nielsen. 

“It’s a good chunk of the population that is considered regular and there’s a slightly larger number of who actually still has a card and maybe they haven’t been in in a while,” says Nielsen

“And I’m always surprised how, even people who may not use the library…who nonetheless, believe it’s an important institution to have and believe that the service should be provided,” says Nielsen. “That libraries are an important part of what makes a community and what makes it interesting for people to live a certain place.”

Nielsen says that her biggest challenge now, following the results of the survey where a quarter of respondents said that they wanted more books, is where to put the sought books. But it’s a good problem to have. Nielsen says that with the rise of the Internet and e-books, that libraries were concerned about staying relevant. 

“And we’re trying to all kind of expand beyond just books, but it keeps coming back to me, that [what] people want…it’s books and learning. And those two things really become the key things for us.”

“The internet is not the death of libraries any more than television was the death of radio or radio was the death of singing or all the things that we predict over time will happen,” says Nielsen. “I think everybody just wants it all in different ways.”

Disclosure: In 2018 the library gained 443 new members. The author of this story was most happily one of them.