Key engagement features

Leadership of the director, strong partnership ethos, planned development of 

traditional services alongside e service delivery, strong citizen centric base for initiatives. 

Toronto Public Library's website is located at http://tpl.toronto.on.ca

Windsor City, Ontario

Windsor is located on the bank of the Detroit River facing its American neighbour on

the other side. It has a population of 200,000, 200 employees in the library and a 

budget of $CAD8 million. The CEO of the library, Steve Salmons, is not a librarian, but

he has a vision that drives his library's response to the e agenda.

The library in Windsor is focused on providing access to government information,

legislation, programs and services to create a more informed citizenry. It sees citizen

input into government decisions as promoting participatory democracy, and it seeks to

use it to create greater internal efficiency and effectiveness.

The library was the initiator and lead partner in local e government/smart communities

funding opportunities. It is a municipal government partner in a G.I.S. initiative 

(Windsor Essex Geometics Cooperative), which will create maps linked to heritage

information. The library is a strong advocate for public access and use of municipal

G.I.S. systems. This requires the ability to offer e commerce facilities. 

Windsor's active involvement came about when constant environmental scans 

indicated an opportunity for e government development funding. The library was an

original participant in the development of broadband services to support and promote

community linkages, but the library took the view that the library must be more than a

passive participant, and offer more than traditional transaction based services. The

CEO describes the change of emphasis as a move to  a consumer focused retailer of

information  (infrastructure, inviting facilities, service/sales culture). Leadership, risk

taking and successes clearly created public credibility and visibility for the library in

Windsor. The CEO stressed that his task was to  position the library to be the natural

partner for managing and facilitating public access to content because of demonstrable

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