Kedgwick Public Library may be small for a library, at 200 square metres, but it makes a big impact in the northern community about 80 kilometres southwest of Campbellton.

Offering everything from a children’s garden to a community kitchen to clubs for seniors, this is much more than a place to borrow books. In a way, it’s like a community glue.

“We have puzzles, games, we have skateboards … our best objects that we rent for free is our fishing stuff,” said manager Diane Thompson, who has worked at the library for 17 years.

“We have everything except the bait for ice fishing.”

Thompson said she’s happy to consider any ideas residents bring to her.

But more staff and a bigger space would also help, she said.

Thompson is most proud of the library’s Eat Fresh program.

It started when a local resident stopped by to express concern about food insecurity in the community.

“They came and they asked me, ‘Diane, could the library do something?’”

Thompson said it didn’t take long to recruit willing helpers from her roster of 172 volunteers.

The Fresh Start program raises money and provides bags filled with enough fruits and vegetables to last a month for a family of four.

Flavien Dubé, 76, has led the Eat Fresh program since it started.

“I’ve been to other libraries where you go in just for books,” he said. “But here you can go in and have an hour discussion … and it’s very nice.”

Dubé said the library attracts people who wouldn’t come for books alone, and it creates connections.

“I think that’s the best library I ever saw.”

There are also programs for schoolchildren, including a summer garden tended by Grade 3 students from Marie-Gaétane School, who grew tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and flowers next to the building.

“They were working the dirt with their hands and putting the seeds in,” Thompson said.

At the end of the season, students shared their harvest. They also made chow chow and sold the pickled relish for $5 a jar so they could buy seeds next year.

Joanne Fortin splits her time between the library in Kedgwick and the library in St. Quentin, where she leads seniors’ groups in the area.

She said a place to socialize and make friends helps seniors “break the dullness of being alone at home.”

Helene Cimon, who has been part of the group for three years, said the library is a way for her to get out of the house and connect with others.

“For us the library is very central for the village,” she said. “They help us with lots of things — we come here to the activity and can borrow a book on the way out.”

The Raymond Lagacé Library in Atholville, a village now part of Campbellton, is another small northern library bringing residents together.

Manager Kevin Soussana, the only full-time employee, has been working there for more than 10 years, along with one part-time employee and seven volunteers.

“I think we could benefit from having it a little bit bigger than it is right now,” he said of the space, which is under 300 square metres.

The Atholville library lends tools and musical instruments to the surrounding rural community, and offers space for the public.

Soussana organizes a broad range of events with the hope of building bridges between groups “to help people working together.”

For example, the library brought Mi’kmaw students from nearby Listuguj First Nation together with anglophone students from Campbellton.

“We try to understand the reality of our own and specific community,” Soussana said.

He and Thompson say their small libraries not only need expanded space, but also more staff to support and add to the activities they offer.

“We have so much priority projects,” Soussana said. “I would love to be able to put as much time on every really important project we carry.”

In Kedgwick, the two full-time library staff and volunteers organize 309 activities a year, welcoming about 5,045 participants, Thompson said.

“It’s incredible. We need more staff.”

“We have been asking, but the answer is always no, even though I know I have good statistics for proving that we need more people to work here.”

In an email statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour said staffing for public libraries is based on many factors, including “library use, population served, and proximity to other libraries.”

Rebecca Howland said staffing was added in 2023 to the busiest small and medium libraries in the province.

“Oh, please, see what we do here, and make a move,” she said.

“It’s incredible for a small community like Kedgwick to be as involved in literacy and activities at the library.”

Thompson said her library didn’t receive any new staff in 2023, and she continues to request more than two full-time employees.

Source: CBC New Brunswick