Côte St. Luc's library fees a long time issue

By Joel Goldenberg, October 24th, 2012

A previous installment of this Suburban 50th anniversary series reflected on the opening of the Côte St. Luc (now Eleanor London) Library in 1966, and how it developed into the “jewel” of the community we all know and love today through its vast choice of books (hardcopy and electronic) and audio-visual material.
And because the library is such a jewel, it has been popular for decades with people who live outside the City of Côte St. Luc (including myself). And therein lies what became a longtime debate.
Although it may be hard to believe today, for the first several years after the library first opened, non-residents were able to become members and then take out books, for free. Later on, during my initial years at The Suburban, most outside residents were not allowed to become members, although they were free to read the material inside the library. At one point, a rule was instituted that only members could access audio-visual material such as old newspapers in the library's basement. (Thankfully, although I am not a library member, I have been given access to the old Suburbans that have aided me in writing these articles.)
Then, a miracle happened. While the 2002 municipal mergers were mostly seen in a negative light, it enabled non-residents to join the Eleanor London Library for a mere $1 - obviously, I and others jumped at the chance to join. Then, when several suburbs demerged, Côte St. Luc thankfully did not return to prohibiting non-residents from joining. Instead, fees were charged ($175 annually for adults, $100 for seniors, children and teenagers, and $300 for families of up to five members) with special arrangements made for residents in neighbouring Hampstead and Montreal West through rebates and vouchers.
As reported in an October 1977 issue of The Suburban, the issue of whether to charge non-residents anything was ongoing at that point. And judging by the tone of the opening paragraph of the article by Myron Welik, the paper did not look upon then-Councillor Bill Kesler's call for a charge favourably.
“Keats and Shelly would have cringed had they been witness to last week's Côte St. Luc council meeting,” Welik wrote.
At that time, Kesler argued that 60 percent of members lived outside of Côte St. Luc, and that it cost each local property owner $40 to $45 a year to “keep up the library,” an amount he argued could be reduced if non-residents paid a fee.
(That $45 sounds like a bargain to me, but then we're talking about 1977 dollars. Still sounds like a bargain to me.)
Councillor Nathan Shuster argued for maintaining free membership for all. The article paraphrased Shuster as saying that “people should not be penalized if they want to acquire knowledge and information from the library.
“We only spend four percent of our 1977 budget on the library,” Shuster added. “Even if we collected $5,000, we would save the residents only 75 cents each.”
Shuster's position carried the day, with a 4-2 vote to keep membership free.
But as we know now, that position was later changed, eventually coming around to Kesler's point of view.