I've heard that they want to put it in that giant vacant lot beside the fire department, which I'm a huge fan of. Why that waterfront/boardwalk space would go to waste on a poorly maintained gravel pit is beyond me. It's some of the best real estate Sydney has to offer, and right now it's just a place to get your shoes muddy. I've also heard that the NSCC campus could go there, which is also a fine idea. I would like to see some young people downtown. Every time I go to CBU or NSCC I always have the same thought: "Who are all these people!"

In earlier news articles, they were tying it to a joint project with Martin Chernin, but it appears he's already well underway with proceeding with his residential building already. It's a lot of money. I hope they do their due diligence. Perhaps a short term solution would be an air conditioning upgrade, given that we have a declining tax base. Might not be the best timing. But it would be interesting to hear how it would be adapted beyond just adding more floor space.

I think that if you look at what happened with the downtown Halifax library project, it ended up being so much more than a book repository. Modern libraries are also about community engagement in a physical location, and I think this one may help to transform the downtown in a positive way.

We have so many different groups all competing to be the center of community engagement in a small region. It might be better times by lumping it in with the NSCC move - if that was to materialize. It's definitely a good thing at its core. Just becomes an opportunity cost discussion when it has a $10-12 Million dollar price tag in a declining tax base with bad vital infrastructure (like roads) with insufficient budget allocation. Having 500 visitors a day, however, is very compelling. I would never have guessed at those numbers, and it would be interesting to see a breakdown on how those stats are comprised. Also: Does it have any significant revenue generation or does it operate at a net loss?

These are all great questions, Joe. BTW we just posted an event notice for a community meeting on Oct.27th. It would be a great chance for interested parties to ask those questions and provide input.

Good point. :)

The $10-12 million would be spread over the 3 levels of government along with fundraising efforts from the library itself. A significant portion of the 500 daily visitors are there for things other than just books. It's one of the main destination for tourists from the cruise ships because of the free public access computers and wifi. Huge DVD/audiobook/ebook collection, seniors computer training, kids lego robotics, etc. If more people realized how much is freely available to them, and the quality of services provided despite a very tight budget, the value of the library to the downtown would make a new building seem like a no brainer. (Full disclosure: I'm currently employed by the CBRL as their computer technician.)

Website down?

Issue related to some of the aging equipment, got it back online first this morning :)

Was checking it out. Website should be modernized. Really an opportunity to do a lot with the events. Right now it's PDF based. Should be more of an easy selection system, more visual and structured, and with alerts (email subscription for preferences, etc). My curiosity in checking out the website began just to see how many organized activities are listed there and how much they contribute to the estimates of 500 visitors a day. But the scheduling part sort of jumped out at me. It would be really interesting to do an analysis on the stats (which pages and info tends to be most utilized), and also monitor the actual user interactions to find opportunities to improve the site.

We're actually in the process of having the site reviewed by students at both McGill and NSCC and will be doing a complete front and backend overhaul in the future. It's one of the projects I was most excited to help on when I joined the library a few years ago, but other initiatives have monopolized time until now.