Benny 270 149,000 334,000 113,000

NDG-

Botrell 1,060 123,000 325,000 114,000

CDN 1,923 473,000 902,000 264,000

Inter-

Cultural 1,800 297,000 1,058,000 220,000

Total

Borough 1,042,000 2,619,000

The main library at 5290 Côte-des-Neiges with 473,000 loans eclipsed all the others. In fact, it had the largest total of loans on the Island, except for the Bibliothèque nationale downtown.

At the other extreme, the tiny library at 3465 Benny loaned out 149,000 items — more than the much bigger NDG facility (3755 Botrell), or incidentally, Fraser-Hickson.

The Intercultural Library, near the north end of borough (6767 Côte-des-Neiges) was in its first full year of operation having opened in October, 2005.

Despite the new “competition” in CDN, the existing facility had a 14 per cent increase in its lending in 2006 compared with the previous year.

It was not alone. The other two operations both showed substantial increases in 2006 —

Botrell also with 14 per cent and Benny with nine per cent.

Behind the higher usage is a better subsidy from the Quebec government to buy new books and materials. Even more important was substantially increased operating hours.

In 2005, all libraries were opened 44 hours a week in winter and 35 hours in summer. Last year this became 48 and 41 hours.

It is being improved again to 51 hours this fall and I expect it will jump to 53 hours weekly for all next year.

This is one of the surprises likely to be unveiled when the boroughs 2008 budgets are presented tomorrow (Thursday) evening in the 6767 Côte-des-Neiges location. I expect it to include about $2.5 million for the borough libraries.

Incidentally, Fraser-Hickson says it loaned out 150,500 items in the year, which included a sizeable number of entertainment videos. The municipal libraries offer only educational videos, so the numbers are not fully comparable.