Giving the Riverview library just three weeks to prepare for a nine-month closure was a huge oversight

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In late August, library staff at the Riverview Public Library went to a meeting about the impending renovations to the Town Hall building, expecting to get a firm date on when they would begin the temporary closure.

What they didn't expect was being told that the closure would star on Sept. 19, rather than in mid-October, as they had hoped.

That left staff rushing to inform their patrons of the closure, instead of being able to execute a well-planned campaign of information dispersal.

It meant that the storytime programs they had planned to start this week had to be cancelled, creating confusion and disappointment for parents and preschoolers.

Some of the repercussions of the closure would have happened anyway. The inconvenience for both library staff and Riverview residents who will have to travel to Moncton for services are worth the extra space the library will enjoy when it re-opens in June.

But giving the library just under three weeks to close up shop says something about the value placed on the services it offers. Even people evicted from their homes for causing damage usually have 30 days before they must out.

The renovations to the Town Hall and Library are a needed and desired project in this swiftly growing town.

But while Town employees are being relocated for the construction period, the library and its services will simply not be accessible.

An extra month of notice would have given staff the opportunity to find ways to offer some of their program in another location, or at least time to educate their patrons on how to access things like research databases and internet access from other branches within the New Brunswick Public Library system.

While some of the town's residents will not find it a hardship to travel an extra 15 minutes each way to get to the Moncton library, certain sections of the population will inevitably find it more difficult to do so.

The added half hour of driving may deter already time-challenged parents of preschoolers from attending programs, and seniors who have been able to walk to the Riverview library for their weekly book run will no longer have that option.

In our fast-paced, high-tech world, communication is key to the success of any public program, and this is where the library has been let down.

By not taking into consideration the needs of the library and its programs, the Town of Riverview has made a strong, if unintentional, statement about how little they are valued.

Hopefully, in nine months, when construction is complete, more thought will be put into announcing the opening than was given to the closing.