At a budget meeting on Friday Feb. 2, the HRM approved Halifax Public Libraries’ proposed $25 million budget for 2024/25, an increase of $1.5 million from last year. What makes this a bitter pill to swallow, even if it was pre-approved in December, is that nearly half of the increase—$692,355 of your hard-earned tax dollars—is because of and will mostly go to Jeff Bezos.
When the library wants to buy a book, an actual ink-on-paper object, it costs about $15 and they can have it until it falls apart. If the library wants an audio book, it costs thousands of dollars to lend it out for two years. Audio books are indeed usually more expensive to make, because studio time and voice actors are expensive. But Amazon’s monopoly of the audio book market is what’s really jacking up the prices.
It’s particularly annoying not to have any other option than to pad Amazon’s profits because, as head librarian Åsa Kachan told the budget meeting, audiobooks allow newcomers a shortcut to community. For a lot of people, understanding a new language verbally comes quicker than reading it. Audio books allow newcomers to learn English and, for those so inclined, join book clubs well before being able to read a new language. This is something most of us would gladly pay a premium to have in this city, as long as it went to anyone other than Jeff Bezos. I guess it’s true what they say: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
Also included in HPL’s presentation at the meeting were some fun library stats. In Nova Scotia we love our libraries and use them way more than the national average. In the HRM, the use of wifi and computers grew a lot in the past few years. This is likely due to a slew of factors including delays in government assistance, high power bills and historic single-year spikes in child poverty.
At amalgamation in 1996, the HRM had 14 libraries. Now in 2024, the HRM still has 14 libraries despite the city’s population growing by 76,000 people since 1997, to today’s 423,000.. The plan for the future of libraries is coming to council later this year for consideration. There will be growing pains, like the cost of building a library has increased from $300 a square foot to approximately $800 a square foot, but the library is seeing if it can get creative. More details to come later this year when the Library comes back to council with their long term plan for the future.
