ABC Gippsland's Breakfast program on 3 August incorrectly told listeners Council had not responded to ABC's request for information on our Libraries and Service Centres trial.

The below comment was provided to ABC Gippsland at 6pm on Wednesday 2 August - within 4.5 hours of receiving a request for information.

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Comments can be attributed to Alba Elling, Acting General Manager Business Excellence

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East Gippsland Shire Council is gathering data about who uses our libraries and service centre services, when they use them, times of day and days of the week, how people are using them (eg in person, on phone and online).

We are also gathering data on what particular services people are using – categories such as libraries, public PCs, payment transactions and many more.

This is occurring in all centres, including the mobile service centres with the aim of providing that information to Council later in the year.

Council knows libraries and service centres play a really important part in our communities through the services they provide. We keep in mind the objectives of the Council Plan when undertaking reviews of services.

Aspects considered are:

1. striving to provide equitable access to services, support and facilities;

2. providing targeted services, partnerships and advocacy for communities to enjoy strong mental health, physical health and wellbeing and access to those services;

3. providing better everyday customer service for our residents and visitors;

4. continuous improvement of our systems;

5. and to ensure our resources are managed appropriately so we can meet our current and future needs.

Through understanding when the community is accessing these services, we can try to ensure these facilities are open when the community is using them and to meet our responsibility to provide services in a financially sustainable way.

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