Beginning a new chapter

After a crippling cyberattack, the city's libraries are slowly returning to normal

- JERMAINE WILSON

Latisha Bailey has worked at the TPL for just over a year. "The library represents freedom," she says. "Literally everything we provide is a service."

Nearly four months after Toronto Public Library suffered a devastating cyberattack that crippled its online services and breached the personal information of more than 2,000 employees, the library is finally turning the page.

"It's been a very intense experience for us," said Ana-Marie Critchley, manager of communications and stakeholder relations at TPL. "With 100 locations across the city, 5,000 computers in our network and over 11 million items in our collections, the impact has been quite significant."

The Star recently visited the Albion branch in Etobicoke to watch workers individually process the backlog of books. Albion is one of the city's busiest libraries, with more than 18 schools, ranging from elementary to post-secondary, nearby.