Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Arviat (Jan 30/02) - A shortage of funding leaves Arviat book lovers a little short on text.

The Bobby Sulik library was closed and librarian Leon Pameok dismissed after the hamlet's library board learned funding had been exhausted for this fiscal year.

Bob Leonard, chair of the District Education Authority in Arviat, says the DEA provides bookkeeping services to the library, but is not involved with its day-to-day operations.

"We were all operating under the idea that the funding would be the same this year as it was last year," says Leonard. "We only found out in late December that, in fact, they were cutting the funding for this year."

The contribution agreement was cut to $37,000 from $50,000 last year.

DEA member Jan Gill says getting information on the contribution agreement is difficult because Nunavut still does not have a territorial librarian to handle inquiries into the matter.

She says there are a number of calls coming into the DEA office concerning the library.

"People are really upset they can't use the library for research purposes, to access the Internet or to just check out a book," says Gill.

The library is also a Community Access program (CAP) site, which makes it a fairly popular destination with local youth seeking Internet access.

The hamlet is looking at ways to access funding to at least keep it open on a part-time basis, but nothing has been committed to yet.

Leonard says the fourth quarter of a fiscal year is far too late to be finding out from the Nunavut government that funding has been cut.

He says when word of the funding cut finally came down, all the DEA could do was inform the library board its money had been spent.

"Quite a few people seem upset that the library is not open on a regular basis right now. When something like this happens so late in a fiscal year, you can't help but wonder about some of the decisions the Nunavut government is making."