Northern Lights adds value to Bonnyville library

The Bonnyville Municipal Library is continuing to reap the benefits of the Northern Lights Library System.

James MacDonald, executive director of Northern Lights Library System, gave Bonnyville council an overview of the past year and what intiatives they’ll be tackling this year.

Northern Lights is one of seven regional library systems operating in the province. They serve the northeastern portion of Alberta and operate out of Elk Point. They have 60 participating municipalities and 50 public libraries. 

Bonnyville also gets some benefit from a close neighbour being a part of this program.

“Because the MD (municipal district) is a member of Northern Lights, the library also gets what they call the rural services grant of $48,000,” said MacDonald.

“You may be spending $35,000 to be members but with that MD participation with Northern Lights as well, your book allotment alone is $33,000 as well,” he explained.

“It’s quite the partnership, intermunicipal partnership, I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it.”

The library saw success in eBook circulation. They circulated 9,562 materials at a value of $709,512.

“This doesn’t include eMagazines, LinkedIn learning, and other electronic resources, it’s just eBooks and audiobooks. This is a pretty easy number for us to grab,” said MacDonald. 

He says they’re always adding to online resources by purchasing all comics access this year. 

According to MacDonald, there are over 4,300 active library cards in the community.

Reflecting on the year, libraries across the Northern Lights system, including Bonnyville, received new websites in 2024. A self-registration site was also launched named GoLibrary. 

A major initiative being launched in 2025 for the library is wireless printing.

“Wireless printing, this is a big one. What happens right now is, people come into the library, they love to print at the library, it’s a great resource for the community. But often it’s on their phone or their laptop, ‘How do I get that to the printer,’ they usually email it to library staff,” said MacDonald.

“Now they should be able to print wirelessly from their phone or whatever it may be. Gets some added privacy, got some cyber security going on there. You can actually print from home and then go to the library and pick it up.”

Bonnyville Mayor Elisa Brosseau was happy to hear library printing was going wireless.

“It’s so nice we hear sometimes people don’t really use the library; they don’t really understand the different things that the library does for the community, and printing is a huge one,” she said. “Great initiative on the part of your team to notice that many people in the community use the library specifically to print out a resume, as you said taxes, all those important taxes.”

“They don’t have that technology at home.”

MacDonald commended the work of the library staff and thanked the library for piloting the printing program in 2024. 

The upcoming year will also see updates to the library catalogue and a pilot program for enhanced efficiency.

Coun. David Sharun thanked MacDonald and his team for their efforts.

“I just want to tell James and his team thank you for all the successes over the last couple of years, and initiatives for 2025. I just wanted to commend you and your team for your financial position and the steps that you’re taking to get there,” he said. “Being a representative from the town I see it firsthand and just wanted to congratulate all of you for an excellent job.”

In late 2024 the library welcomed Jill Tercier as its new library manager with assistance in the hiring process from Northern Lights.

Read more: Bonnyville FCSS presents 2025 budget

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Christian Apostolovski
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