We need a history of the Hantsport Library.
I scanned Allen Robertson's book Tide & Timber -Hantsport, Nova Scotia 1795- 1995. Lots of great info but no info on the history of the library. I believe it was located in HMCC for awhile.
Let's share our Hantsport Library experiences too.
Here's one of mine:
I moved to Hants Border in 1990 and was delighted to find a library in the town!
One day I want in and the librarian Diana Thompson was sitting at a computer and looking at the screen. She was watching a weather map showing a storm centre approaching Nova Scotia.
Now, I had a computer but the internet was new to me and to many others.
Diana showed me how the computer with the internet would open the world to me.
She had to show me many many times but she was patient. Eventually I learned how to use it myself.
What a gift.
-Heather Davidson
Hi Heather,
ReplyDeleteMy friend, Lynda King said you were looking for some history of the Hantsport Library. My first recollection of the library growing up in Hantsport was when the library was held upstairs in the Churchill House. The librarian was Elmira Borden who lived in the house immediately east of the Anglican Church.
The stacks were very close together in this library. I don't think two people could pass easily when looking through the books in the same section. As a child I remember the beautiful hardwood floors in the library and thought they must all be new; likely they had all been sanded. I think the library was open two or three days a week though this may not be for certain. Elmira set standards for borrowing books and being in the library. She taught us to talk in low voices and respect the handling of books. I was fascinated with the pencil she used to sign out the books on the library cards found in the pockets at the back of the books. The pencil had an attachment with a dated rubberized stamp that the librarian would use to mark the due date on the pocket at the back of each book. The pencil was functional also as an ordinary pencil.
I am not sure when the library moved to another location. It may have been when the present school opened in 1961. It housed the AVRL but was not used by school students until after school hours! This changed in later years of course.
The forerunner of a library in Hantsport, I believe, was the lending library provided by Miss Wall, who lived in the building directly across from the Post Office. She influenced many children in Hantsport to read and borrow her books. That was not part of the AVRL system but was a bookstore and small lending library that always celebrated Canadian Children's Book Week in November each year. During that week, school kids raced to Miss Wall’s after school eager to hear her tell the stories from the oversized-picture books she displayed. This stands out for me as a child and a library experience in Hantsport.
Hope this may help, Heather.
Lorna MacNeil
I haven't much to report, except my Mother, Dorothy Wellwood, was a regular user of the library and wouldn;t be found at home without 3 -4 books. Mom was a teacher here in Hantsport for years, as is known by many people here. She was a history "buff" as well. The library was at the Chruchill House and she walked there regularly. I heard her say often, she didn't know what she'd do without the library. She would take her bag of books and hike up to the Churchill House and get her supply of reading to lug home again. She was always talking about her books and what she was currently reading.We often said she was a walking history book. How important is that eh? I personally am so enthused about the new library, and I also, would be lost without this place of learning and center for just about everything. Ruth
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