Library seeking public input on future priorities

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 2, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The Lethbridge Public Library is asking residents to get involved with the public engagement phase of a Library Facilities Master Plan Project.

“This project basically addresses long term planning needs for public library services in Lethbridge. The idea is to have long term data and community needs in order to address long term service planning as well as facilities planning for public library services,” said Terra Plato, Lethbridge Public Library CEO.

She said the reason for the master plan to be needed is because facilities can take a long time to raise the money for it and get it built.

“What we need to know is looking 20 to 30 years out what will our city likely look like and the planning for that before a new facility is needed,” said Plato.

She said they are looking into planning, as the city grows, how the library services can grow to meet the needs of the community.

Plato said there are four stages to the Master Plan project, with the first being data collection, stage two is stakeholder engagement, stage three is community engagement and stage four is analyzing the data and putting it into the plan.

“We are currently in the midst of our stakeholder engagement phase, so this is reaching out to our stakeholders to find out what their current and future Public Library service needs might be and we’re just moving into our community needs assessment stage as well,” said Plato.

In order to engage with the community they will hold three events with the first one happening today at the Farmer’s Market at Exhibition Park. The next event they will be present at is the Farmer’s Market at Festival Square on Aug. 3 and the last event will be the Word On The Street festival at the Main Branch of the Lethbridge Public Library on Sept. 17.

Plato said the process is expected to be completed by early 2023.

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