City of Surrey Annual Financial Report

CITY OF SURREY OVERVIEWS SURREY PUBLIC LIBRARY

Surrey Public Library (Surrey Libraries) has nine branches, located in the six town centres of City Centre, Guildford, Fleetwood, Newton, Cloverdale and South Surrey, as well as in Strawberry Hill, Ocean Park and Port Kells.The Library collects and loans a wide variety of materials in print, audiovisual, and online formats. Our READ-Ability home delivery service utilizes volunteers to take reading materials to people who cannot visit a library. Surrey Libraries offer a wide variety of programs that support literacy, including story times for children, job finding and career workshops, reading clubs for children and teens, computer literacy and coding classes, services for newcomers, and support for customers with print disabilities. Surrey Libraries is a member of the Public Library InterLINK, a federation of 18 library systems in the Lower Mainland that allows citizens to borrow directly from all partner libraries and to return materials at their home library branch. The BC OneCard program allows Surrey residents to borrow materials directly from other participating BC public libraries when they are travelling. The department has responsibility for the following divisions:

ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES Administrative Services manages the physical spaces, as well as the finance, human resources and information technology functions of the Library system, ensuring day-to-day service requirements are met. This division also manages the Library’s image and raises awareness and funds to support and enhance its community services.

PUBLIC SERVICES Public Services manages the borrowing and information services offered through our nine locations and plans, promotes, and delivers a wide variety of programs. This division also acquires and manages the print and electronic collections that suit the needs of our diverse community.

2 0 1 9 A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S • Offered Adaptive Storytimes for children on the Autism Spectrum and American Sign Language- English Storytimes for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

• Ran a Neighbourhood Safety Series of workshops to educate the community on taking action on public safety, the threat of hate crimes on public safety, and changing demographics and common goals for safe neighbourhoods. • Helped citizens improve digital literacy skills with technology training in branches, provided access to online courses from Gale and Lynda.com, and offered access to Cypress Resume. • Facilitated the Google IT Support Certificate program for 50 learners in Surrey. • Hosted Authors Among Us program for local writers and poets to showcase their work. • Ran programs such as a Repair Café, digital skills for entrepreneurship, resumé check-up, and interview presentation and practice. • Piloted Dot & Dash Robotic Coding program with traveling iPads and developed staff training plan for system roll-out.

• Introduced Wonderbooks, audio-enabled picture books for children. • Promoted the value of learning by hosting the Grand Reading Link Challenge for kids from grades four and five, with 227 teams of kids from 48 Surrey Schools participating for a total of 1,357 children. • Issued 1,041 new library cards at events in the community through Mobile Circulation and a total 28,674 new library cards issues overall. • Actively planned for a new library in Clayton Community Centre and supported major renovations at Cloverdale branch. • Ran a Pop-Up Library in the Cloverdale Recreation Centre while the Cloverdale branch underwent renovations.

• Became a SAFE PLACE for the LGBTQ2+ community (RCMP program).

• Hosted the Indigenous Authors and Storytellers Series for Children featuring four Indigenous authors. • Added 5,482 new multilingual items to our collections and improved English Learning Training collections for newcomers. • Updated Indigenous headings in the collection and offered Indigenous cultural awareness training for staff. • Offered library services and literacy skills to Surrey’s vulnerable and newcomer populations through outreach programs, reduced barrier access cards, and Internet only user passes.

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