Newmarket Public Library’s new definition of an “active member” will dramatically inflate the Library’s membership numbers. 
Last year, in his foreword to the Library’s Report to the Community 2024, Board Chair Darryl Gray proudly announced:
“This past year has been extraordinary for the Newmarket Library, marked by significant growth in membership and an expanded presence throughout our community.”
Hold on to your hat because membership increases in 2025 could be truly spectacular.
The Library has changed its definition of an “active cardholder” from someone who uses their library card at least once in a two-year period (the Provincial definition) to someone who has an unexpired library card - whether they use it or not.
It is not clear when - or if - the Board approved this change which, on the face of it, doesn’t square with the Provincial definition. (Photo right: Library Board Chair, Darryl Gray, and Library Chief Executive Tracy Munusami at the 17 September 2025 Board meeting.)
The latest active cardholder figures will be considered by the Library Board on Wednesday (19 November 2025).
These show 26,393 active members at the end of September with three months still to run in 2025. If this trend continues for the rest of the year, this puts active membership on course for a 11 year high - or since on-line records have been posted. It could be the best ever.
Outreach
Since the appointment of the current Chief Executive, Tracy Munusami, in August 2021 membership growth has become the defining statistic used to measure the Library’s success.
Recruiting new Library members through outreach is a crucial component of the new strategy. 
People are signed up in bulk, for example, in schools.
But, because a card is issued, it does not follow that it will be used.
Astonishingly, the Library chooses not to track members recruited through outreach to see if they actually use their card to access library services and are not just sleeping members.
The Chief Executive says collecting this information would infringe the privacy of library members but that’s a bogus argument. No personal details would be sought or required – just the aggregate statistics.
The latest figures to be presented to the Library Board on 19 November 2025 show that in the July-September quarter of this year, over 23% of new members came through outreach.
Annual Survey of Public Libraries
To be eligible for Provincial library grants, all Ontario libraries are required to submit data to the Province annually for inclusion in its Annual Survey of Public Libraries (ASPL). Last year, Newmarket Library received $74,494 from the Province. (The Town’s operating grant to NPL was $3,781,775.)
The Province requires libraries to count “active cardholders” who are defined as:
“library cardholders who have used their library card in the past two years.”
As I say, Newmarket Public Library now defines an “active cardholder” as someone who holds an unexpired membership card. The Chief Executive says this “aligns” with the Provincial definition.
Plainly, it doesn’t.
Ms Munusami insists:
“A library card provides access to a wide range of resources: digital and physical materials, programs, spaces, and services. We do not monitor or track individual usage, and there are no systems in place to measure all the possible ways one can access the many types of library services (i.e., main branch, vending machines, alternative locations, programming, or online services).”
These arguments are specious. The Library currently tracks the use of on-line services and the lending of books and digital materials which are accessed by a library card to get the usage totals which are shown in the Statistics Dashboard.
Members of the public who are not library members can use its public spaces, consult books and other reading materials, book rooms and use the computers. The Library does not - and never has – tracked any individual’s use of the Library. The video here shows what NPL's integrated library system Polaris can do.
It can effortlessly pull up the names of patrons to see when, for example, they last used their library card.
But the Library doesn't spy on members to see what they are borrowing.
Contradiction
When I flagged up the clear contradiction between Newmarket’s new definition and the Provincial one, I was told by Deborah Cope, a civil servant at the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming:
"The definitions are intended as guidelines to assist libraries in filling out the surveys as best they can, while understanding each library may have different systems in place to capture active users. (My underlining for emphasis).
We do not have concerns with the data that the Newmarket public library has shared to date. We will continue to work with all public libraries, including Newmarket Public Library, to support them as they fill out the survey each year."
If the Province wants data from libraries across Ontario which reflects its own definition of active users it needs to offer advice and guidance to Newmarket Public Library before Ms Munusami files her survey for 2025.
Otherwise, across the Province, it's garbage in and garbage out.
Membership renewals
The Library has also stopped publishing data on membership renewals – a key statistic when assessing membership retention.
At the Board meeting on 17 September 2025 Library Vice Chair, Councillor Kelly Broome, asked the Library Chief Executive about the reported 9,476 new or first-time members who joined the Library in 2024:
“And those are new memberships for the year 2024?”
Tracy Munusami nods yes.
Kelly Broome:
“Renewed memberships?”
Tracy Munusami:
“New memberships.”
Board members and the public no longer get statistics on renewed and lapsed membership. But the figures are available within the library.
What Needs to be Done
The selective use of statistics can be misleading.
The Statistics Dashboard, which was only recently introduced as a regular agenda item, goes to the Board on a quarterly basis. The range of data should be expanded to include:
- Membership renewal figures. (And the membership renewal figures for 2024 should also be published.)
- Lapsed membership.
- New Memberships signed up through outreach showing how many new members have actually used their membership card after, say, one year to access Library services.
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Note: Membership is good for two years at which time it must be renewed.
Newmarket’s Library System Software, Polaris, could capture renewals at the end of each month if it is asked to do so.
