Coquitlam Public Library is about to get a new look.
This month, the library, which has branches at City Centre and Poirier, will unveil its new brand: an orange and green circle with a salmon head at the top and a river at its base.
Executive director Anthea Goffe told the city’s council in committee last month that the logo features elements of dialogue, technology and books — key themes for the library:
- the salmon head doubles as a speech bubble to represent communication
- its tail is a WiFi symbol to represent connectivity
- the river forms an open book to represent literacy
Goffe said the new branding will be on the marketing materials as well as on the new Library Link mobile library, of which a new vehicle rolled out in February.
Goffe, who was hired as executive director in February 2023 to take over from Todd Gnissios, said the rebranding comes as the library is returning to pre-pandemic levels for branch visits and program participation.
In the past year-and-a-half, Goffe said the library has turned a new page “from top to bottom” with internal changes and better financial controls, policies and relationships with city partners.
Last year, for example, 935,000 items in the library’s collection, including books, video games and technology, were borrowed — more than half by children.
As for program participation, it rose, 77 per cent over 2022 levels.
And with more people comfortable returning to shared spaces, customer traffic also shot up in 2023: 64 per cent more over the previous year at the City Centre branch and 24 per cent more at the Poirier location. The Library Link also saw a 27 per cent increase last year.
Ryan Jamieson, the library’s deputy executive director, said the new Library Link has seen a 30 per cent uptick in visitors per stop since it launched (in comparison to the same time period last year, February to June) while circulation at the Link is 19 per cent higher.
In terms of the physical and electronic collections, more is being added or replaced: In 2022, 60 per cent of the books were past their life cycle while, today, the older book stock stands at 39 per cent.
“It’s great to see the collections budget increase is going to good use,” said committee chair Coun. Matt Djonlic, the council liaison on the library board. “I know that it was a regular complaint around books that were too old.”
