It has been two years since our whole world was up-ended by the COVID-19 pandemic and Brampton Library had to shut its doors. I want to thank all of our customers, staff, and supporters for their continued commitment to helping the Library and the community thrive in difficult times. 

The Library did thrive during the pandemic. We expanded our Digital Library, introduced curbside pickup service, pivoted to virtual programs, launched our mobile app, and started interacting with you through chat on our website. When it was safe, we slowly re-opened our branches with limited capacity and services. Although it has been hard on our community and on our team, we’ve learned that the library is an evolving and flexible piece of social infrastructure, and that it plays an important role in fostering equity. That’s one of the reasons why as of January 1, 2022, Brampton Library no longer charges late fees on any of our materials. We’ve also learned that the resources we provide for borrowing are not the only thing people need the Library for. Our spaces, our programming, and our role in community gathering are also important, and we have missed these opportunities to gather in person.  

As covid restrictions are lifted, we are relaxing restrictions and re-introducing services. Wearing a mask is no longer required when you visit our branches, nor are there any restrictions on the number of people who can be in our spaces at one time. We ask you to respect the choices of others, including our staff, to continue to wear a mask as they choose. We will gradually re-introduce all of the seating you have been used to so that you can spend more time studying, reading, and relaxing. We will also re-introduce in-person programming to animate our spaces, starting with CBC My Brampton Day at Springdale Branch Library on March 30, We are looking forward to bringing back our popular in-branch family storytimes in the first week of April, and our makerspaces shortly after. By the fall, we hope to have our audio recording studio at Chinguacousy Branch Library fully operational, and are planning on offering after-hours study halls at select locations.

This is an exciting time at Brampton Library for other reasons, too. We have already released a new Facilities Master Plan that calls for doubling the amount of library space in the next 10 years, starting with the planning of a new downtown library as part of the Centre For Innovation project. Now, we are working on creating a new Strategic Plan, and we need your voice! You can complete our survey from March 28 until April 25, 2022. If you are interested in participating in a community discussion, or have other thoughts about the Library’s future role in our growing community, you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. As we recover from this pandemic, we want to know what we can do to help everyone feel that they belong at the Library.