A formal legal opinion says they found no wrongdoings on behalf of Simcoe County Library CEOs when they accessed a leaked document online last spring which was posted in error regarding the dissolution of the Simcoe County Library Co-operative.
County council ultimately voted to dissolve the co-operative in April 2022, while replacing it with a Digital Library Service (DLS, formerly called the Information Library Service, or ILS). The new DLS is being implemented now with the transition almost complete. The DLS would replace many of the IT functions previously performed by the co-op, including cloud-based e-services IT platform, cyber-security threat protection, and IT HelpDesk.
How the decision was made to dissolve the co-op is controversial and has made headlines in the past few weeks after the county’s closed-meeting investigator found that the vote to dissolve the co-op was done improperly in closed session by councillors as part of the regional governance review task force.
During a council meeting in April, County of Simcoe councillors said there should be "consequences" after a confidential report regarding the possibility of dissolving the co-op went onto the public county website for a brief time prior to a council vote on the matter and was allegedly downloaded and circulated by CEOs at municipal libraries in Simcoe County. The issue had been resolved within three hours of it being reported, however, it was accessed by top library officials from the region.
Recently, a formal legal opinion by Weir Foulds LLP, commissioned by Toronto Metropolitan University's Centre for Free Expression was completed and found no wrong-doings on behalf of the Library CEOs.
"While the report was marked confidential, none of the Simcoe County Library CEOs obtained the report through surreptitious means. The report was made publicly available by county officials on the county’s website (albeit inadvertently)," read part of the opinion. "While municipal officials may be restricted from disclosing information from in-camera meetings that is not already in the public domain pursuant to a code of conduct, no wrongdoing can be attributed to the [library] CEOs for simply accessing, sharing, and discussing publicly available information that was the subject of an in-camera meeting."
In the Bradford Library Board's last meeting of the term on Monday, Chair of the Library Board Jennifer Harrison suggested the issue surrounding the confidential report being published online was a "distraction" from the real issue at hand: cuts being made to the libraries.
"It seemed like creating this storm over here so that we didn't look directly at what was happening to library services and cuts," she said.
“This finding against the county by the closed-meeting investigator should be a wake-up call that Simcoe County must start fixing the mess they made to library services,” said Jonathan Scott, vice-chair of the Bradford West Gwillimbury Library Board.
The Bradford Library Board has been vocal over the past year about their opposition to the decision. Of the 11 library boards that make up the co-op, only Bradford West Gwillimbury has not agreed to join. As one of, if not, the most diverse municipality in the region, the Bradford Library says they will feel the effects of the changes most, impacting up to 1,000 residents, particularly those visitors who access multilingual services and information technology services.
“It is now apparent that Bradford West Gwillimbury — as the largest urban centre, the most diverse municipality and the fastest-growing town in the county — will bear the brunt of these county cuts and will either risk services or face increased costs at the local level,” wrote Harrison in a statement earlier this year.
Cornell says the Bradford West Gwillimbury Library is not obligated to join the DLS, but if they choose to do so will have the same benefits as the other municipalities who have opted in.
"They can use all the DLS services or select a portion, such as just using the database subscription service," said Cornell. "There is no contract, no term, and no specific start time as many of the services have already been seamlessly transitioned."
Cornell said the previous model of the Library Co-operative was the last co-operative in Ontario with all other Ontario jurisdictions abandoning the model in favour of "more responsive and modern approaches" to library services for residents.
The BWG Library has requested the county to provide them with a capita share of $25,000 per year in lieu of joining the DLS.
“We’ve been clear on what we would consider some measure of fixing this problem," said Scott.
After multiple correspondences sent to the county, Library CEO Matthew Corbett was pleased to report on Monday that the county has agreed to meet with him next week to discuss the request.
"In terms of next steps, we are going to have this meeting and see where the conversation goes," said Corbett. "I am not really sure what the county's goal is on this whereas but it's very clear where our goal as a board is."
Cornell said the meeting will allow the county to get a better understanding of the request, but maintains there is "tremendous value" in the new DLS service.
"Particularly the improved software/database subscriptions, greater network security and IT support that the local libraries who have joined will receive. Those who have joined the DLS will see value and mitigate extra costs at a local level," said Cornell.
He says cultural programming remains intact and available to any municipal library through the county’s Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) program and access to multilingual materials can be maintained through the Ontario Library Service (OLS) circulation program, which was a duplicated service under the county’s previous library co-operative structure and the county’s digital subscriptions.
"The physical assets that once formed part of the Library Co-operative are now turned over to the municipal libraries to own, share and manage as they see fit. The new DLS is now managed through the County’s IT Department with dedicated library and software/IT security staff. Those libraries that choose to join the DLS will continue to benefit from bulk procurement services which will assist in cost savings at the local municipal level," said Cornell.
-with files from Jessica Owen
