Quebec libraries portrait shows disparity between Montreal and regions

A man walks past the Grande Biblioteque library. (Paul Chiasson/ The Canadian Press)

Public libraries are popular with the public, but most Quebec municipalities are struggling to meet demand, while some have even cut back on book acquisitions.

On Tuesday, the Quebec Public Libraries Association (ABPQ) and Réseau Biblio du Québec published the third provincial portrait of Quebec public libraries, giving the network an overall score of 66 per cent. The assessment is based on five main criteria: spending on book acquisitions, opening hours offering the greatest possible access, human resources, adequate floor space and seating capacity in relation to the population.

Acquisitions down 20

In an interview with The Canadian Press, the association's executive director, Ève Lagacé, made no secret of her disappointment at the fact that municipalities have been less generous with their libraries.

“There is one indicator that was going quite well, acquisitions, where we have seen a considerable drop,” she said. “It actually fell by 20 per cent between the two years (2022 and 2023). We were surprised. We'd heard rumours in the community that some municipalities were cutting back on collection development or book purchases, and then it turned out to be even worse than we thought.”

And yet, she points out, public libraries are the most widely used municipal and cultural service in Quebec: “The rate of use of libraries is really enormous. Year after year, we have nearly three million users registered in libraries, and in terms of visits, we have nearly 30 million per year. That's way ahead of arenas and parks.”

Quebec ‘far behind’

The Portrait 2024 is produced using its own indicators, but Lagacé notes that some of these indicators allow comparisons from which Quebec does not emerge the winner.

Looking at the specific indicators and comparing them with English Canada and the United States, Quebec is definitely far behind British Columbia and Ontario. And overall in the United States they have well-established library services with historically high usage.

“In terms of human resources,” she continued, “if we compare ourselves with British Columbia and Ontario, we have a third of the teams, a third of the number of human resources that they have in proportion to their population. So that's a considerable difference, and it affects the quality of services.”

Montreal in a world of its own

The overall result of 66 per cent from the National Portrait is barely a passing grade, but it is above all an average that conceals vast disparities between the regions. The Montreal region is the only one to achieve a maximum overall score of 5, with a score of 94, the Laurentians (80), Bas-Saint-Laurent (72) and Abitibi-Témiscamingue (69).

At the other end of the scale, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region had the worst score, at 50 per cent, making it the only region to achieve a score of two. All the other regions have an overall score of three.

Although it did not come out on top for every criterion, Montreal nevertheless ranked at the top of the pyramid in all the categories evaluated.

Côte-Nord and Nord-du-Québec surprise

The Laval region (39 per cent) is in last place in terms of surface area offered, well behind the Eastern Townships (51 per cent), Nord-du-Québec (85 per cent) and Montreal (82 per cent) in terms of seating capacity. In fact, it is the only region to score 2 in this evaluation criterion, while all the other regions score 4 or 5.

In terms of opening hours, Nord-du-Québec and Laval both received a perfect score of 100 per cent, with Montréal close behind at 97. Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (33) closed the gap.

Lack of staff

The results are directly related to the issue of human resources, with the lowest scores for opening hours being reflected by the lack of staff.

Thus, the regions of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (14) have a rating of 1 for human resources, while a rating of 2 is given to those of Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine (19), Capitale-Nationale (24), Lanaudière (34). The regions of Montreal (91) are the only ones to deserve a rating of 5.

More specifically, only the regions of Montreal, Nord-du-Québec, Côte-Nord and Abitibi-Témiscamingue receive ratings of 4 or 5 for the number of documentation technicians, while for librarians, the situation is difficult everywhere except Montreal, which still gets a rating of 5, but all the other regions can do no better than ratings of 1 or 2.

Jobs for the future

“From the moment a library is opened, citizens are always at appointments and, therefore, we need to have professionals, technicians to support this development and offer quality services. The jobs of documentation technicians, librarians, I would say that yes, these are definitely trades, professions of the future,” said Lagacé, who said that in certain regions, librarian positions have been posted for months without finding takers.

Finally, beyond all these evaluation criteria, the portrait presents some interesting statistics, in particular that Quebec has 1,033 public libraries serving 96.7 per cent of the population.

What this means, obviously, is that 3.3 per cent of the population does not have access to a public library. In fact, no fewer than 192 municipalities do not have a public library on their territory or even an arrangement with a neighbouring municipality that could offer the service.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 22, 2024.