It’s a February afternoon in the General Synod library. The phone rings and the caller is seeking a video from the national church’s long-closed resource centre. It must be Lent, sighs librarian Karen Evans.
The resource centre closed in August, 2000, as a result of budget cuts . The job of its coordinator, Annie Kakooza, was eliminated and hundreds of items (mostly videos) were parcelled out to various groups and diocesan resource centres that expressed interest in providing a new home for them.
But the library, headed by Ms. Evans still gets enquiries about resources previously available from the centre. They trickle in throughout the year, but increase in Advent and Lent, when parishes and dioceses typically hold events and programs requiring supplemental resources.
Ms. Evans says there is a vacuum in the Canadian church for print and video resources which do not have to be purchased. “I do feel badly because it’s usually assisted dioceses or remote parishes looking for these resources.”
In 1998, the last year that the Resource Centre kept statistics, it handled more than 1,000 phone requests, 855 drop-in visits and circulated 844 video titles and 1,848 print resources.
Ms. Kakooza, who went on to fill a short-term contract position with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, continues to look for work in public service or special libraries.
