In Ballybane and Westside, and other communities across Galway, it is “clear how important a resource our local libraries are”, and they deserve greater levels of funding in the upcoming Budget.
This is the view of Fianna Fáil senator, Ollie Crowe, who has called for additional funding to be directed towards libraries, noting that there were 1.2 million library members across the State and 17 million visits a year pre-Covid. “Even a relatively tiny amount of funding in terms of the entire budget will make a huge impact,” he said.
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Sen Crowe [pictured above] said there was a need to support funding for both physical and virtual libraries. “Both are important and mainly cater to different age ranges,” he said. “Physical libraries are particularly important for older members, while their virtual equivalent will likely grow in significance for younger members.”
Sen Crowe also called for legislation for libraries around licensing costs and copyright. “The lack of transparency in terms of licensing costs for libraries is an issue,” he said. “Our copyright law should be reformed to allow libraries to scan whole books they own in print, where ebooks are unavailable or unaffordable for preservation, and for controlled access to support research and learning.”
