Cultural Strategic Investment Fund Grant

In 2006, former South Korean president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-jung called upon world libraries to “fulfill more dynamic roles” because “the time has come for libraries to assume a role that is unprecedented in importance”. Meanwhile, the global economy almost collapsed, ecological disasters abound and Google has achieved global recognition striving “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”. As rapid changes occur, some libraries are being closed while others are successfully re-inventing themselves. The City of Stratford is reinventing itself. Stratford is a 2011 top seven intellegent community. The new University of Waterloo campus and Stratford Institute promise to make Stratford a focal point for the future of digital media. Entrepreneurial creativity abounds in Stratford; creative workers are coalescing like never before.

Ontario’s public libraries must “seek to provide, in co-operation with other boards, a comprehensive and efficient public library service that reflects the community’s unique needs” (Public Libraries Act). Stratford Public Library will balance the global and the local by engaging local creative and digital expertise to prepare a strategic plan.  This Strategic Plan will be a model plan to guide other Ontario libraries in engaging their local knowledge economy as well as the various sectors in the community, especially those that traditionally show little or no interest in their library. SPL will prepare its strategic plan in partnership with the Stratford Institute for Digital Media, the Institute for Collective Intelligence, the Perth Community Futures Development Corporation and the Ontario Library Association.

Today we were pleased to welcome John Wilkinson, MPP, Perth-Wellington to the Library where he announced that the Stratford Public Library received a Cultural Strategic Investment Fund Grant from the Ministry of Tourism & Culture for $31,000 to help make this strategic plan a reality.   

“Cultural organizations enrich our community and help drive creativity,” stated Wilkinson. “With this support the Stratford Public Library will be able to continue their work to enhance our cultural life and community, helping to attract new visitors and boost cultural tourism. I am delighted that Stratford’s plan will serve as a model to guide other Ontario libraries in engaging their local knowledge economy.”

Watch for updates throughout this year on the progress of the strategic plan and its outcomes. 

From Left: Sam Coghlan (Stratford Public Library), Brendan Howley (Institute for Collective Intelligence), John Wilkinson ( MPP, Perth-Wellington), Kristin Sainsbury (Perth Community Futures Development Corporation)