Stony Plain Public Library: Making the Library a Place for Everyone

For Stony Plain Public Library, being a public library means more than providing access to books.

It means creating a space where everyone feels welcome, including people who may not always see traditional library services as being for them.

The library has been using the Social-Ability Happiness Programme to help make that ambition a reality, bringing people together through interactive, accessible activities that can be enjoyed across ages and abilities.

And, importantly, it has opened the door to people who might otherwise never have walked through it.

Creating new reasons to come to the library

Technology Coordinator Darythe Hill has seen first-hand how easy it can be for people to feel that a library isn’t necessarily a place for them.

“The library is for everyone.”

For Stony Plain Public Library, the Happiness Programme has become one way of putting that principle into practice.

One of the clearest examples came through a Building Connections event for youth and adults with complex needs.

The previous year, three or four people had attended the sessions. For Stony Plain, that still meant three or four people had been given the opportunity to explore the library and experience the Happiness Programme.

When the library decided to run the sessions again, the programme was no longer an unknown. The people who had experienced it could share that experience with others, helping to build awareness of what the library could offer, and this time, 25 people came along, many of them faces Darythe hadn’t seen in the library before.

For some people with complex needs, simply getting into a library can involve significant practical and social barriers. The event gave them a reason to come, a welcoming activity to participate in, and an opportunity to experience the library in a completely different way.

And the impact on the library and attendees didn’t end when the session did: following the sessions, several attendees began looking into getting library cards and exploring other things they could access through the library.

The Happiness Programme had not simply provided an activity. It had helped people discover that the library could be a place for them. A genuinely inclusive way to bring people together

The interactive nature of the Happiness Programme also means that people with very different needs can participate alongside one another. Stony Plain uses the programme with groups including people living with dementia, people with complex needs and people who use wheelchairs.

Darythe has seen participants continue to engage even as their physical abilities change. One resident he worked with continued attending the programme as their mobility declined, moving from walking independently, to using a walker, and eventually to using a wheelchair.

Throughout those changes, they were still able to participate.

The projector’s intuitive design is an important part of that accessibility. Participants don’t necessarily need to understand the technology behind it. They simply interact with what they see. As Darythe explains, some people living with dementia become so absorbed in the projected activities that they don’t even realise a projector is creating the experience.

“They’re just so engaged with the content that they don’t realise that it’s coming from somewhere.”

That simplicity helps remove the feeling that someone needs to be “good with technology” before they can take part.

More than an activity: a connection to the wider library

For Stony Plain, this is where the programme’s value really lies.

The Happiness Programme creates an immediate reason to engage, but the wider opportunity is to connect people with everything else the library has to offer.

A person might arrive for an interactive session, discover a space where they feel comfortable, meet other members of their community, and then begin exploring library cards, services and other activities.

That makes the programme part of something much bigger: the library as a genuine community hub.

Rather than asking people to fit into a traditional idea of what a library is, Stony Plain is finding new ways to bring people into the space and allow them to discover what the library can mean to them.

Measuring impact beyond attendance numbers

Like any library, Stony Plain has to think carefully about how it invests its resources.

When the library first began using the Happiness Programme, the cost was covered through external funding. When it later became the library’s responsibility, Darythe admits that the price initially seemed significant.

But the library team saw the value differently.

As Darythe puts it:

“This isn’t just a participant number based thing, because the stories that you bring, and the impact we see, it is worth every penny.”

Laina Kelly, the Library Director reiterates this sentiment.

“One of the reasons I can justify the expense of this program was that one of the goals of our Plan of Service is that Senior citizens can easily and confidently access library services from the comfort of their home. To me, this is an unconventional and innovative way to bring library services to the homes of seniors with dementia, who might not otherwise access library services at all. They are members of our community who deserve care and we are honoured to be able to provide a library service that meets their needs in the comfort of their care homes.”

That is perhaps the most important lesson from Stony Plain’s experience.

For programmes designed to reach people who may face barriers to participating in mainstream community activities, success cannot always be measured by volume alone, and extending the library’s reach to 25 people who might otherwise not engage with the library can be more meaningful than reaching hundreds of people who were already regular visitors.

The value is in creating a connection that might not otherwise have happened.

“It’s great for the participants. It’s great for the facilitator.”

For Darythe, the impact is personal too.

As the library’s long-standing Happiness Programme facilitator, he has developed relationships with the people he visits and runs sessions with.

Even when someone living with dementia may not remember Darythe from one visit to the next, he can see that they associate his arrival with something positive.

“They know you make things fun.”

It’s a reminder that the programme is not simply about the technology or the activities on the projector. It’s about creating positive experiences, building relationships and giving people something to look forward to.

And Darythe is just as enthusiastic about facilitating the sessions as the people taking part.

“I absolutely love facilitating the Happiness Programme.”