Neighbourhood Library Winterized

If you are a regular at the South End Library Main Branch, you may have noticed a few changes.

We’ve got new doors!  Thanks to Belinda for providing the cedar.

My neighbour Heather headed down to Rona to get the wood cut, and when told staff that she was determined to build new doors for the library, they helped her with the cutting, and even donated the hardware to get the doors together and rehung.  YAY Rona!  (and when Heather told them what it was for, they knew about our little community bookshelf…COOL!)

We can paint the doors funky when the weather gets warmer, but for now, they will do.

We weren’t sure if we would make it through the winter without leaks, so Harold Horne helped rig up a little “shower cap” that should keep everything dry until spring.

So…she may not be gorgeous, but she’s full of good reads for a rainy winter eve.

Of note:

Someone generously donated the wildly popular “5o Shades” trilogy….wow!

And there are lots of newer books, too.

Right now, we’re a little short on kid’s books.

It’s this type of sharing that makes the library work.  Thanks, everyone.

Barbara

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South End Library Report

On a Sunday afternoon about 2 months ago, I returned home to find this:  the bookshelf stacked FULL of books, every row double up.  There must have been a good hundred of them!  Sure, that has happened before, but this time, it was really different: they were mostly recent and popular books..the kind of books that lead most readers to say: “oh wow!” when they find them on the bookshelf.

So let me pause here and say “thank you Kelli from Victoria Road”  for your generous generous donation.  You really kicked us up a notch here…:)  If you managed to pick up one of those books, you know…that’s all I will say.

Now, newer/popular books are something we ALL love, but they tend to disappear and not come back.  My first thought was: “oh no…someone could come and take ALL of these away and sell them somewhere.  Then we’d ALL lose.”  It took me 40 minutes to move most of them from the bookshelf.

And I’ve been putting them out in dribs and drabs since then.

This got me thinking about how the library is working for the neighbourhood.   I can only talk for me, so here goes…

Some of the very best books I have read this year have come from that bookshelf.  In particular, I would like to thank the people who generously donated Sarah’s Key (the best book I have read in years), A Widow for One Year (got me back into John Irving),  Water for Elephants (even better than the movie), and the hilarious  An Irish Country Doctor will be in the shelf next time I stock it up.  You could  have easily taken them to a second-hand bookstore, given them to your friends, or just kept them forever. Instead, you brought them here, and added much joy to my life.  I am grateful.

But I also want to confess that at times I have been a bit of a hoarder…seeing a book title I like, and putting it into my reading pile where it has sat for months and months…after all, unlike a normal library, there is no time limit on these books, and you don’t even need to return them…!

So here’s my New Year’s resolution to you.  As your librarian (and a mostly inept one at that!!!), I will continue to focus on keeping the library stocked with books that allow me to hear the occasional “Oh Wow!”  (I love that sound!).  And the books I have been meaning to read…but just haven’t….are going back into circulation after I finish writing this.

So if you’ve been dying to read Tropic of Cancer or Woman: an Intimate Geography, hustle on down to the South End Library…they will be waiting for you…and hopefully, if they are gone already, they will come back…:)

Here’s to a terrific 2012.

Barbara

BTW, If you have any comments of suggestions, just make them here (I am also co-editor of this blog).  Or leave me a note in the library.

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Bookshelf #2…?

Thanks to Harold, the original neighbourhood bookshelf has been given a bright new facelift and is rarin’ to get off the front porch.

If you would like to host this colourful character in front of YOUR property, we’ll gladly  outfit you with a cornucopia of books.  Just e-mail us here (southendcommunityassociation    at     gmail.com)

And stay tuned for upcoming reviews of some of the scintillating books that are now in the South End Library Main Branch, including pithy titles such as:

• Why Men are the Way they Are
• God Drives a Flying Saucer
• Get a Job in 60 Seconds
• I Ain’t Well but I Sure am Better

Looks like we’ve good some books that are as colourful as the bookshelves…and the neighbourhood!

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South End Library on Shaw Cable

The filming we mentioned last month is on Shaw Channel 4 this week.

6 PM Monday Feb 21 to 6 PM Tuesday Feb 22  ( will be broadcast 2-3 X/hour)

and then

6 PM Saturday Feb 26 to 6 PM Monday Feb 28.

Thanks to Melissa from Shaw…and the weather for giving us a good shoot!

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South End Libary on Shaw Cable

Today we had a terrific shoot with Melissa from Shaw Cable, about the story of the creation of the South End Library. John and Harold did a bit of fixing, which got filmed, and we decided that the next version of the Library would be 3 stories high and include a snack bar (it was funny at the time….:)  We even caught a few passers-by on camera, should be a fun clip.

Here are a few pics.

We’ll let you know when it is slated to be aired.  Thanks Melissa, you are such a joy to work with.

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