After the province cut its funding, the View Royal Community Library is dipping into its savings.

“It’s important to a library to have new material,” said library chair Jim Powell. “We hope we will be able to maintain a pretty reasonable collection of new material.”

The library generally spends between $11,000 to $12,000 annually on books. That will be cut back to $9,000. “It will be about half of what we would normally have,” Powell said in regards to new book purchases.

“We will use our funds that we have been saving for our building fund,” Powell said. “We will carry on as long as those funds permit. We will be buying some new books, but not as many as we had budgeted for.”

The building fund, totalling roughly $50,000, was to be used toward a new library and to hire a library manager. The organization is completely volunteer run.

Announced this summer, the province slashed library funding by 22 per cent and cut funding for reading centres completely.

Faced with a lack of space and funding constraints, the View Royal Community Library gave up its library charter at the province’s encouragement in 2008. That decision was made under the impression it would be funded as a reading centre. The organization expected $15,914 this year.

View Royal council and Esquimalt-Royal Roads MLA Maurine Karagianis have written to the province asking for a reconsideration on the funding. The Town will also have to discuss if it will provide more funding to the library — it currently covers the organization’s rent at Admirals Walk.

“We are still hoping the provincial government will provide at least some of the money toward our provincial grant,” Powell said.

reporter@goldstreamgazette.com