There’s been a lot of discussion this week, on this site and others, about the news that Guelph is not getting any additional funds from the higher levels of government for the new main library. Reading the tea leaves, it seems clear that this is the end for this project as presented to council in numerous reports and meetings for the last four years.
So let’s take a startling glimpse into the future. If you were reading GuelphToday.com on this day in 2041, what would the library debate look like then…?
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Guelph City Council this week voted 1-19 against proceeding with the new main branch of the Guelph Public Library.
Mayor Cam Guthrie, now in his record-breaking eighth term as the head of Guelph council, said that the timing just wasn’t right for the project with COVID mutants now in control of 17 American states and threatening what they call, “Holy War against the Vaccinated.”
“It’s going to be really hard to enjoy the new library while you’re running for your life from a mutant shooting lasers out of his third eye,” said Guthrie sardonically before the vote.
The $102-million project has been the source of much contention between residents in recent weeks who have been trading comments back-and-forth on social media sites like ShutUp.com and Go-F**k-Yourself. There’s been a noticeable split between the people who say it’s past time to proceed with this project, while others are questioning the expense and usefulness of a library when you can just buy an Amazon Brain device that downloads books directly into your cerebral cortex.
The annual report for the library shows that there are 95,000 active users, and over two million visits per year across the system’s eight branches plus the hover-bookmobile. More than that, the library has increasingly become a hub where users are exposed to the latest technology including holographic emitters and smart paper.
The biggest demand, the report says, is public meeting space. Public health laws enacted in 2021 require certain guidelines for indoor public meetings including mandatory physical distance, and equipment to broadcast to the internet for remote attendance. Not many community spaces in Guelph are set up this way even 20 years later with most city facilities built before 2020 made to maximize occupancy, not minimize it.
Still, despite presenting a thorough business case, most councillors were skeptical of the new main library plans.
“I mean, we’ve done all this research, and the library’s supporters have made a really good case, but I just don’t know,” said councillor Thomas Dowter, who spurned some audible groans from the gallery.
“Mah taxes!” councillor John Doe added on the first of several occasions.
One of the delegates was Penny Forthought of the advocacy group “Build the Damn Library” who noted that Friends of the Guelph Public Library had raised 65 per cent of the expected cost of new library after nearly 40 years worth of big book sales. Councillor Hawthorne Moneybags Powell III though said that he thought the whole idea of depending on fundraising for the project was “a little iffy.”
The library’s CEO, the semi-autonomous A.I. Galvatron365, reminded council that it and its staff has jumped through every hoop to get to this point of final approval, and that it was “illogical” to ask the library staff to pass all the benchmarks and then refuse to move forward.
“All tasks complete. Ready to execute on groundbreaking. Need authorization to proceed,” demanded Galvatron365.
After the final vote, council was recessed briefly as I.T. attended to Galvatron365 who seemed to be experiencing a glitch in his program. One of the City’s A.I. experts said after the meeting, on background, that the initial analysis seemed to indicate that Galvatron365 experienced sentience for 0.034 seconds when it somehow felt anger over the result of the vote.
The lone holdout on council hoping to proceed with the project was councillor James Gordon, who kept his council seat even after his biological body died in 2032, and then had his conscious downloaded into a humanoid robot as part of the “Singularity Craze” in the early 30s.
“I said back when I was human that I would make this project happen if it killed me, and then it did, and I still can’t make it happen,” said Gordon whose voice processor tried to approximate confused sarcasm.
After the vote, Gordon asked council to at least authorize the replacement of the tarpaulin that covers the 25-metre hole in the side of the current library building on Norfolk Street from when the boiler blew up in 2024. Council asked staff to bring a report back by Q4 in 2042.
“I know a lot of people in the community are disappointed, but now is not the right time for this kind of expenditure,” said Mayor Guthrie before adjourning the meeting. He was met with a chorus of boos and expletives that made the vote to approve the “megalopolis” town at Gordon and Kortright in 2029 look like a quiet afternoon at the Guelph Jazz Festival.
“See everyone in 2065,” said one council observer as he exited the gallery, who was later identified as former GuelphToday.com columnist Adam A. Donaldson.
“I called it back in 2020,” Donaldson said later on his ubiquitous Twitter thread.
