The Sylvan Lake Municipal Library has three programs that could be cut if attendance doesn't increase.
The three programs that could potentially be cut are the book-to-movie club, donuts with grown-ups, and pyjama story time.
Library staff work hard to meet the needs of the community, library programmer Maddie Anderson said.
"Our job is to make sure we are meeting the needs of the community, assessing what programs we are running and innovating to meet those needs."
With the last book-to-movie club, which covered the books in the Harry Potter series, none of the books or movies ordered by the library for the program were taken out.
"I ordered two copies of each book and each movie and none of them went off the shelf," Anderson said.
With the donuts with grownups program also being reviewed, the library gets to partner with local business Mountain House Bakery.
"It's a story time with an activity and delicious donuts. We are hoping to see more attendance, and when I talk to people about the program, they just don't know about it," Anderson said.
The other program for parents with pre-school-aged children potentially being cut, pyjama story time, is held on one Thursday evening each month.
"We wanted to make space for parents that aren't able to come in the mornings," Anderson said.
There are many reasons why attendance numbers for the programs have fluctuated, head programmer Corrie Brown said.
"We have had a couple of people move away and the interest didn't pick up again."
To keep the programs going they may need to be adapted, Brown said.
"There are programs we have kept alive with low numbers that we have been able to make thrive again. For instance, Prism club at one point dropped to one person every month so we changed it to being a once a month in the evening program, and interest has increased."
Another program that was adapted successfully was the school is out movie days.
"We did a lot of movie marathons that were paired with crafts and activities. We weren't seeing them as a success, so we adapted to a smaller time frame and focused on gaming and bringing in outside organizations," Brown said.
The library will exhaust all options before a program is cut, Brown said.
"We have a monthly newsletter that goes out but we might start targeting specific programs to that mailing list. Some of it is just word of mouth and also getting feedback about the program to better meet the need."
If any programs get cut, they will be replaced.
"We don't like to replace programs right away. Think of it like a soft launch. We are trying this," Anderson said.
Final decisions on whether or not programs will be cancelled are also generally made quarterly, Brown added.
"They are made quarterly because of the community guide. Every time we put something into the community guide, we are beholden to running it during the duration of that guide."
When a program is potentially being cut, it is pulled out of the community guide to be adjusted.
"The pre-school programs are in the community guide but we did pull the book-to-movie cub from the guide," Brown said.
To learn more about programs held by the library, individuals can sign up for the library's newsletter on the library's website.
"Most of our programs are drop-in, so people are welcome to drop in and try out our programs," Brown said.
