Approximately seven years ago our library was faced with some legislative changes that required us to develop a number of new policies and procedures. As a board member since 2003, I created a sub-committee that began this process in 2006. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of staff, our library developed over 100 policies and procedures aimed at improving the quality and accountability of our library services to our community. With the stimulus funding provided by the federal and provincial governments a few years ago and a forward-thinking municipal council, both branches of the North Kawartha Public Library (NKPL) benefited and received funds to build new facilities to serve our community. These new buildings were constructed to meet the latest standards for accessibility and the growing demands for technology based services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With all these achievements, the NKPL began investigating the requirements for provincial accreditation. The Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL) administers the Ontario Public Libraries Guidelines (OPLG) Program with the aim of assisting public libraries in developing and maintaining consistently strong public library service. The OPLG Program provides a voluntary accreditation process to recognize those libraries that meet a province-wide set of service expectations through their policies, resources, facilities and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year the Library Board and staff felt that our Library was ready to submit itself to the accreditation process. After providing all of the required information and documents and undergoing a peer review and audit, our application for accreditation was approved by the OPLG Monitoring and Accreditation Council last November. On January 31, 2013 I along with Technical Services Coordinator Susan Suhr and Librarian Debbie Hall attended the Ontario Library Association\u2019s annual Super Conference in Toronto, where we accepted our Accreditation certificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having served on the North Kawartha Library Board for the past decade I\u2019ve come to believe that public library service is essential to the economic health and social well-being of any community, and with this latest achievement by the North Kawartha Public Library, it is clear that our community is thriving. I want to thank all our staff and board members (both current and past) for their commitment to providing high quality public library service to North Kawartha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Approximately seven years ago our library was faced with some legislative changes that required us to develop a number of new policies and procedures. As a board member since 2003, I created a sub-committee that began this process in 2006. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of staff, our library developed over 100 policies … <\/p>\n