Morinville Community Library celebrating Library Month

By Morinville News Staff

Morinville – The Morinville Community Library is in full swing just in time to get into the full swing of Library Month, an annual recurrence that celebrates the joy and value of public libraries.

Library Manager Isabelle Cramp said this year’s theme is Libraries Connect. “I feel this is a good theme as it is true, at the library level, we really connect people in our community,” Cramp said. “We make it available for people to come into a comfortable place where they can meet to connect with other people in the community. We can see that really in our clubs – the book club, the knitting club, and the quilting club.

The knitting and quilting club meet twice a month; the book club meets monthly. Cramp said a recent penny drive has been launched to fund a new club at the library. The Lego club will be an all ages club, allowing lovers of plastic building blocks to be creative. “This is another way for people to connect,” Cramp said. “It’s going to be open to all ages. All those people that are very passionate about Lego, and they come from every age group, will be able to get together and share some tips and tricks, and build some things together. It’s a way for people to come together and come into a space that is safe and comfortable to meet other people.”

Other initiatives for the new library and its connecting with people include bringing in local experts to share what they know. Cramp said sessions would be held with local business owners and community groups.

But there is more to library connections than connecting people to one another. Cramp said considerable time is spent today connecting patrons to new technologies that are now a considerable part of what the library offers. “We constantly do one-on-one sessions with people to help them with anything new that’s coming out,” she said, adding library staff offer help with everything from Android phones to e-readers.

Big book sale coming

Cramp said one of the major events planned for Library Month will provide reading at a more traditional level. The library will be holding a major book sale the last two weeks of October, offering patrons and visitors an opportunity to buy reading and viewing materials at a bargain. “We’ll be pulling out all the donations we’ve received and we’ve received a lot of donations in the last month since we came back into our space,” Cramp said of the volume of books and videos ready to go on sale later this month.

Although the new program room would be a proper place to hold the sale, Cramp said the room is pretty much fully booked in October. As such, the sale will take place in the library and library lobby.

Donations for the book sale are welcomed any time of year as the library sells second hand books year round. However, donations are particularly needed heading into their big sale later this month.

Cramp said the sale is all part of the library and library board’s commitment towards seeking funding outside the funds provided by the Town of Morinville. “It’s very important for us to help ourselves so that we can do the things we want to do in the library,” Cramp said. “We want to start new programs. We always try to find ways where we can fundraise money. Our book sale is a big fundraiser. It goes all year long and all the monies we make go back into any programs that we do.”

Other events planned throughout the month of October include the regular club meetings and a special Halloween movie night.

“It’s a great time for us to celebrate what libraries are and we really are the heart of the community,” Cramp said. “We’ve really seen that since we reopened in September. We’ve been busier than ever.”