A Post about Libraries - Shock Horror!

For those of you who don't know, I started this blog as an assessment requirement for my Masters degree in Teacher Librarianship. The idea was to use the blog as a personal learning journal, to record the development of my knowledge about the role of the Teacher Librarian.

Along the way, I somehow hi-jacked the blog for my own purposes, reviewing books, talking about myself and my family, and connecting with lots of other bloggers.

I love blogging! I enjoy having a forum to post my thoughts and photos, and I like the fact that everything I've posted is neatly archived so that I can revisit it if I want to. I have a great time blog-hopping, reading about parenting, fashion, education, current issues, libaries, and lots of silliness and fun!

So, today I'm actually writing a post about libraries. This morning I heard a news story on the radio about the public libraries in my Local Government area. They are shortening their opening hours due to a restructuring of the budget. A quick visit to the Council website confirms that "changes to library hours will bring us closer to the library operations of similar sized Local Government Areas around the state" and that "funds have been reallocated to provide improved library resources and better maintain library facilities and no funding cuts have been made to library budgets".

So, does that mean that I should expect an influx of new books to arrive in my local branch? More computers? More comfortable couches? Just how much money are they saving by reducing hours? And what, exactly, are they going to spend it on? What's better; a reasonably good library that's open long hours, or an excellent library open shorter hours? What serves the needs of the community better?

Speaking of meeting the needs of a community, two ladies from my church run a library of Christian books and other media to serve the needs and encourage the Christians in our community. Visit the library website here, and see what a large catalogue they have managed to amass in the year since they began. Do you know of any private, non-profit libraries in your community? Whose needs do they serve? How successful are they in meeting their goals?