STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.
By Shaun Penner
Library Services

Partnership working to bring library smart lockers to Clairmont

Jan 27, 2021 | 6:56 PM

The County of Grande Prairie has approved the use of $5,000 of surplus funds from the County Library Board’s 2020 budget to cover the start-up cost of installing library smart lockers at the Wellington Resource Centre. This is being done so area residents can have materials ordered through the Grande Prairie Public Library delivered to a secure and centralized location in Clairmont.

Council voted to move the funding at Monday’s meeting.

“It provides those library patrons the opportunity to order their resources online, whether its books or tapes or whatever resources they can order online,” said County Reeve Leanne Beaupre. “They can either return them to the safe locker, or they can pick them up at the safe locker.”

The project is being completed thanks to a partnership between the County Library Board, the Grande Prairie Public Library (GPPL), and the Peace Library System (PLS).

The GPPL has received grant funds to help purchase the lockers. Once those are delivered and installed, PLS will deliver materials to and from Clairmont, and a County Library Board employee will manage the filling and emptying of the lockers on a weekly basis.

Beaupre says with Clairmont’s growing population, which is expected to reach 5,000 in 2021, it only makes sense to bring some of those services they would typically have to travel into the city for closer to their community.

“Ease of access to the library, being outside the city boundaries, creates some logistics issues. It’s not a big challenge, but having these smart lockers will help people access more materials from the library in a quicker fashion.”

There is currently no timeline for exactly when the lockers could be delivered and installed, though GPPL Director Deb Cryderman is optimistic they can be ready for use by the summer.

by Shaun Penner