Library Assistant
Courtenay
I like working with the public and have been doing this work for 16 years. It’s interesting to work with an organization that is geographically widespread because you really get to know many different communities on Vancouver Island. I’ve enjoyed working at eleven different branches and every branch is a little bit different.
I’m a booklover and it’s really nice to see what’s coming up, what’s new. It’s so interesting to work with books and discuss books and ideas across the counter. Libraries are one of the last public forums where we have a place to exchange ideas and have dialogue.
I also like the fact that more community groups are coming in to use our multi-purpose room. There are lots of community connections made – with the writers’ group, with the ESL conversation group, with the children’s storytime group. We meet needs at every level of society.
I really look forward to a future where the library has more of a hand in doing basic computer access training for people. We depend on computers more and more and there’s a segment of the population who need to come in to print and fill in government forms and don’t know how to do it. Libraries are their only access. I’d like to see us help us fill a real need in the community for more basic computer instruction. I get a lot of people coming to the counter and asking for computer basics. Right now if people want to learn computers in our community, they generally have to pay.