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TO: Mayor and Council DATE: December 3, 1973

FROM: Alderman P. Ranger

RE: Friends of the Port Coquitlam Library Association

As the City of Port Coquitlam representative on the Fraser Valley Regional
Library I assisted a local group of interested citizeus in forming an
organization known as the "Friends of the Port Coquitlam Public Library”.

Groups of this type are conmon in public libraries throughout North America

as an auxiliary support group to the Board of Management. They are a sounding
board for members of the Board of Management and act as a buffer in the community
providing informative feedback to the Library Board representative appointed

by Council. The local organization was formed in 1972 and a copy of their
constitution is available. The purposes stated in the constitution are that

the organization shall maintain an association of persons interested in
libraries to focus public attention on the library; to stimulate the use of

the library's resources and services; to receive and encourage gifts, endowments
and requests to the library; to support and co-operate with the library in
developing library services and facilities for the community; to lend legislative
support where needed; to sponsor fund raising events to help acquire materials
beyond the confines of the library budget; and to support the freedom to read

as expressed by the Canadian Library Association. The constitution goes on to
‘describe qualifications for membership and the manner in which meetings will

be h2ld etc,

Under the present Fraser Valley Regional Library system Port Coquitlam does not
have a Library Board of Management as such. We are entitled to appoint one
Council member to the Board of Management of the Fraser Valley Regicnal Library
ead this representative is on his own in trying to interpret the needs of the
community. Under the present system therefore Friends of the Library provides
a valuable service in backing up the Council representative on the Regional
Library Board and maintains continuity between the library administration and

citizens.

The Provincial Library Development Commission is engaged in a program of develo}--
ing federated library systems on a regional basis. This is taking place in other
eegional districts in the Province and the Greater Vancouver Regional District
is presently being studied with a view to creating a federated library system
out of all of the municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

The Bowren Report pvoduced in 1971 described a system of consolidating library
services in the region. The present schedule calls for investigation and
Promotion during 1974 with a goal of establishing the federated system by

April of 1975. The specific recommendations in the Bowren Report suggested that
Port Coquitlam -aave the Frasér’ Valley Regional Library system and join with
Coquitlam and Port Moody to form a joint library board which would then become
part of the G.V.R.D. library system. The tri-municipal library would have its
own Board of Management and would remain autonomous. In participating in the

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