Member Spotlight: South Central Regional Library

In our Member Spotlight series, we shine a light on our BC Libraries Co-op members and partners, exploring how they use our services and the unique challenges and successes they experience.

South Central Regional Library

Our first spotlight features South Central Regional Library in Manitoba, a member of the BC Libraries Cooperative since 2010. This year, they received the first-ever Human Rights Book Award from the Manitoba Library Association. The award recognized their commitment to maintaining access to their collection despite facing calls for censorship, defunding of their library and staff harassment.

Meet Cathy Ching

Cathy is the Director of Library Services at South Central Regional Library in Manitoba.

Which Co-op services do you use at South Central Regional Library?

Sitka 3.1, LibPress, Acquisitions Module [to track funds and purchases through the Evergreen Integrated Library System].

What challenges have the services offered by BC Libraries Co-op helped your library with?

Website accessibility, personalized notifications on catalogue banner, cataloguing concerns/glitches and adding products to our catalogue (CloudLibrary, ComicBook+). Support staff are very quick to respond and prompt for detailed information so they can fix the problem properly.

What learnings would you like to share with other member libraries?

Take advantage of the training webinars and use the documentation provided. If you still can’t find what you are looking for, a ticket to Sitka Support will get a quick response.

What accessibility challenges has the service helped you with?

They provided guidelines for checking the website accessibility. Support was very helpful in ensuring the most efficient method was available, so changes were done correctly.

Have you accessed any of the Co-op’s continuing training or webinars?

I share updates and BC Libraries Co-op information with my Branch Admins and encourage my staff to take continuing training, especially if they are new to the job!

Highlights of 2024 for your library:

Highlights of the year would be our Bookland Explorers Summer Reading Program. During the month of August, our busiest month by far, we circulated over 31,300 items. 17,100+ were children’s books alone! Staff worked hard and Sitka’s Evergreen program did what it’s supposed to do…get books checked out quickly and efficiently.

Anything else you would like to share?

I want to share this picture of my staff dressed up in dinosaur costumes. This picture is important to us as we were facing extreme challenges over our collection. There were calls for defunding our libraries, harassment of staff and a very vocal group wanting books removed. We persevered by taking the challenges seriously, standing our ground and injecting some humour into the whole ridiculous situation. The dinosaurs brought some light-hearted fun back during a very concerning time. They were a real morale booster.

Thank you!

Ways you can connect with South Central Regional Library:

 

Visit their website: South Central Regional Library

Check out their YouTube Channel: South Central Regional Library – YouTube

Follow on Instagram: South Central Regional Library

Follow on Facebook: South Central Regional Library | Winkler MB | Facebook