SUPPORTS ITEM NO. 2
CS&B COMMITTEE AGENDA
JULY 20, 1995
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
Date: June 29, 1995
TO: Standing Committee on Budgets and City Services
FROM: Director of Social Planning
SUBJECT: Grant Request: Kinsmen Rehabilitation Foundation
RECOMMENDATION
A. THAT Council approve the cancellation of the 1994 Capital
Grant of $7,950 to the Kinsmen Rehabilita-tion Foundation,
and return of these funds to the unallocated portion of the
Capital Grants budget.
B. THAT Council approve a grant of $6,000 to the Kinsmen
Rehabilitation Foundation to assist in the sorting and
selection of resource materials to be transferred to
Vancouver Public Library; source of funds is the
unallocated portion of the Capital Grants budget.
C. THAT the City contract with Vancouver Public Library to
transport the donated Kinsmen Rehabilitation Foundation
collection, select priority items and catalogue them, for a
total cost of $6,000; source of funds is the unallocated
portion of the Capital Grants budget.
GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The General Manager of Community Services RECOMMENDS approval of
A and submits B and C for CONSIDERATION.
COUNCIL POLICY
Approval of grants (Recommendation B) requires eight affirma-tive
votes.
BACKGROUND
The Kinsmen Rehabilitation Foundation of B.C. (KRF) has a collection
of approximately 5,000 publications, journals, audio-visual items and
service brochures and catalogues, all dealing with independent living
for people with disabilities. This collection is currently held in
the Independent Living Information Centre (ILIC) located in the KRF's
head office at 2556 West 12th Avenue.
The KRF has sold its head office building and will be moving shortly
to a new location. Unfortunately, there is not enough space in the
new facility for the materials from the ILIC. If a new location
cannot be found for the ILIC collection, much of it will have to be
placed in (inaccessible) storage or discarded.
On July 28, 1994, City Council approved a Capital Grant of $7,950 to
KRF to help pay for renovations to an area operated by the B.C.
Rehabilitation Society to accommodate the ILIC collection. This
project would meet the objectives of providing a physical space for
these materials and of ensuring that the collection is accessible to
everyone who needs it. Social Planning staff strongly support these
objectives.
However, because of changes in program and staffing, B.C.
Rehabilitation Society is no longer in a position to provide a site
for the ILIC. Consequently, the City's Capital Grant was not spent.
DISCUSSION
KRF provided consultant expertise during the construction of the new
central branch of the Vancouver Public Library (VPL), and feels that
this new facility is a leader in North America in providing barrier-
free accessibility for people with disabilities. They also know that
VPL is committed to providing a full range of services to people with
disabilities.
Consequently, KRF initiated discussion with the Director of VPL to
investigate the possibility of donating a significant portion of the
ILIC collection to VPL. Library staff have indicated that they are
interested in acquiring this collection to augment their existing
service to people with disabilities. They do note, however, that
sorting, culling, cataloguing and integrating such a collection will
require resources which are not available at this time.
There are two components to the job of relocating the ILIC resources
to VPL:
a) KRF needs to review their entire collection to identify and pull
out all materials which meet VPL's criteria for public library
resources.
b) The selected items must then be transported to VPL, and VPL staff
need to catalogue and integrate them into the main collection.
KRF estimates the total cost associated with sorting their entire
collection into material they will keep, materials to be donated to
VPL, and materials to be discarded at $19,000. This includes
reformatting their database, materials, staff costs and the cost of
supervising volunteers assisting with the work. This work has already
begun, and some of it needs to be done, whether or not a portion of
the collection goes to the VPL. The estimated cost of doing the work
required to ensure that only appropriate materials are selected for
VPL is $6,000 to $8,000.
VPL has estimated that the cost of transporting the collection,
sorting through it and integrating it as soon as possible into the
main collection will be approximately $21,000. If extra resources are
not found, the collection could be integrated over the next three to
four years, as time and resources permit. There is a concern,
however, that there is an immediate need for some of the materials and
some of them are only useful for a limited time period. The objective
of improving access to these materials could be thwarted if they are
in storage awaiting cataloguing and integration. Some time-dated
materials could be redundant by the time they get put into the system.
As a workable compromise, VPL staff are proposing that they do a quick
evaluation of this collection, and immediately catalogue and integrate
the higher priority and more timely items. Staff estimate that 1/3 to
1/2 of the collection would fit into this category of needing
immediate attention. The remainder would be dealt with as time
permits. This partial integration will cost approximately $6,000.
As noted above, City Council approved a Capital Grant to KRF to do
some renovations to provide a new spot for the collection to be stored
and to make it more accessible. The new proposal to move the
collection to VPL meets the same objectives, but is not a capital
project, and is therefore not eligible for Capital Grant funding.
Such a project also does not fit the criteria for other City grant
programs.
Social Planning staff feel that the need for and importance of keeping
these materials in the public realm and ensuring accessibility to
those people most in need of them warrants a creative funding
proposal. We therefore recommend that this unexpended Capital Grant
to KRF be reallocated to help fund this project. Also, in 1994,
several other capital projects actually cost less than was approved as
Capital Grants. Social Planning is recommending that these unexpended
1994 Capital Grant funds also be used as a source of funding for this
project.
In summary, KRF and VPL each need $6,000 to transfer materials from
the ILIC and to integrate and catalogue the highest priority items
into VPL's collection. Staff are proposing that a grant be given to
KRF and that VPL be contracted by the City to do their part in the
implementation of this project.
CONCLUSION
The Kinsmen Rehabilitation Foundation has developed an invaluable
information resource for people with disabilities. KRF is no longer
able to keep this collection and have offered to donate it to VPL,
where it will be accessible to the people most in need of it.
However, there are some costs involved for sorting through the
collection, selecting the most appropriate and needed items, and
integrating these into the VPL collection.
A Capital Grant was provided, but not used, last year to KRF to enable
the move of this resource material to another, more accessible
location. As the objectives of the move to VPL are the same as those
of the project funded by the Capital Grant, staff are recommending
that this unexpended capital funding, along with a smaller amount
approved, but not spent, on other capital projects in 1994 be made
available to KRF and VPL to enable this transfer to take place.
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