Membership continues to be strong at the Okotoks Public Library.

Recent stats show the library has about 18,000 memberships, which is only about 11,000 less than the population of Okotoks.

Lara Grunow, Interim Director at the Okotoks Public Library, says the library is a high traffic facility for a number of reasons.

"Our library is very well used. We saw 153,213 people come through our doors, and what that means per month is we had about 12,000 visitors who came into the library," she explains. "Not all of these will be library members or patrons, they'll be people who come in to use our computers or to access our wifi, attend some of our programming, as well as check out some of our collection."

Grunow adds these stats help to support the library's need for an expansion.

The library has a done a great job of following along as resources have modernized.

"The great thing about having a library membership now is that with all the electronic resources that we offer, people can access the library from wherever they are in the world, so you can download e-books or e-audio books, you can download and keep music, download magazines to read, we have streaming video services," says Grunow. "There's just so much that we have to offer."

The Okotoks Public Library is part of the Alberta Library System which means they share resources with other libraries. In 2018, the library shipped out over 40,000 items to other libraries and brought in over 78,000 items for patrons in Okotoks.

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