Greetings,

 

In 2012, the world is celebrating the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives (IYC). Co-operative enterprises have been benefitting communities world wide for hundreds of years. IYC will honour the value of working together to meet shared needs.

 

Last week, I attended the Vancouver launch of IYC, an event coordinated across several Canadian cities via webcast. BC Premier Christy Clark and MLA’s Jenny Kwan and Bruce Ralston spoke at the Vancouver event. So did Tamara Vrooman, CEO of Canada's largest Co-operative financial institution, Vancity. All touched on the economic sustainability, social responsibility and democratic principles at the core of the Co-operative model. All emphasized the innumerable ways that Co-operatives strengthen communities. All were optimistic about the future of Co-operatives in Canada.

 

I was struck by how much of the event's messaging about Co-operatives is interchangeable with messaging about libraries. The membership of the BC Libraries Cooperative is a diverse community that shares capacity and pools resources to access exclusive product ranges and innovative services, cost effectively. In turn, our membership is able to provide enhanced services in so many communities across BC and Manitoba.

 

In this, the International Year of Co-operatives, the BC Libraries Cooperative will leverage the success we’ve enjoyed in both our Licensing and Sitka Groups, diversifying and expanding our exclusive offerings, being ahead of the curve in technology innovation, and striving to deliver new cost-effective solutions for the membership. We will continue to reinvest in the library community through local employment, infrastructure, collaborative initiatives and capacity building. And we will continue to be accountable to the membership through democratic processes. In these ways and more, we will continue to demonstrate our value.

 

I would like to wish our members, service and funding partners a very collegial International Year of Co-operatives, and welcome all to work with us to strengthen the library community. 

 

If you have an idea about a new service the Cooperative should explore, I encourage you to share it with me.

 

Yours Co-operatively,

Ben