Western Counties Regional Library

Turning 40 can be hard for some folks, but others believe it’s also when you really find your footing and find out who you are.

This can apply to institutions, too, such as the Western Counties Regional Library (WCRL), which celebrated its 40th on October 29, 2009.

The WCRL started from a single branch in the town of Yarmouth, the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, and has grown to a system of 10 branches covering the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia. So much has changed over 40 years. Perhaps the biggest change, according to Trudy Amirault, regional library director, is the move “away from just being a book repository.”

“We’re way beyond that,” she says. “Libraries are about information and information can come in various ways.”

Technology is one way. For example, the WCRL is, like most public libraries in Canada, a CAP (Community Access Program) site. Through the program, which began in the mid-1990s, people can book time on computers free of charge to do research,find out about educational and employment opportunities and connect via email and social websites such as Facebook.

According to Amirault, CAP also supports the local tourism industry. She’s observed many tourists come in to use a computer to stay in touch with family and friends back home.

“We’re just developing a program right now for teens using technology in creative ways,” Amirault says.

Set to launch in January 2010, the library is partnering with CAP to offer teens training, access and services in podcasting, digital photography and video camera operation.

The WCRL also formed an Immigration Partnership with the Southwest Shore Development Authority (SWSDA) to welcome and support newcomers to the region.

Together with recent immigrants to the community, the Partnership drew up a list of priorities. One was to have a central location for information on how to, for example, use the Canadian banking system. “The library made perfect sense. It’s a place people go to get information,” says Pam Thibault, SWSDA development officer.

Since November 2006, Thibault explains, an “immigration information navigator” has been employed with funding from the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration and now routinely visits all branches in the region to meet with and orient newcomers.

“I think it’s been enriching for everyone here, at the library and in the community,” says the WCRL’s Amirault.

A Cuban community has taken root in the town of Yarmouth, Amirault says, with many working at a local call centre which requires Spanish-speakers. There are musical members of this community and some play in a band called Latin Time (who played at a provincial library conference hosted by the WCRL about a week before its big anniversary.)

In another example of community outreach, the WCRL recently launched a writer-in-residence program. The goal is to match new and aspiring writers with established and experienced authors, Amirault explains. It seems to be working: the first meeting in early September drew 56 people from all over the region to the main branch in Yarmouth.

Library coordinator Debbie Little and library clerk Yvette Frost approached and partnered with journalist/author Sandra Phinney to create the residency. They applied for financial support through a fund called CommonWealth of Writers: Our Writers/Our Libraries, administered by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. With this funding, they’re able to pay authors, editors and other publishing professionals to come share their expertise at various branches of the WCRL system.

“I think the main purpose is simply to nurture and encourage people to write, with a view towards getting published, although that really is secondary,” says Phinney.

In the residency’s first year, Phinney is offering a series of nine monthly seminars, dealing with a range of topics, such as writing non-fiction (from memoir to magazine writing to essays) and fiction, editing, and how to get published.

Besides the seminars, those who want to go a step further can be mentored by Phinney. “Participants meet with me on a one-to-one basis for half an hour at the library,” she explains. This can mean different things for different people. “For some, this may be to review their work – and they may need some coaching. It may be simply to point them in the direction of certain resources – people, books, organizations. It may be to help them come up with writing strategies, getting organized, where to start – that kind of thing.”

In the longer term, the writer-in-residence program will extend to all three counties – Digby, Shelburne and Yarmouth – served by the library. The 10 branches spread across the area already host visiting writers, especially children’s authors, for readings and events, says Trudy Amirault.

Despite all the developments and change, books remain a big part of the WCRL’s role in the community. The library supplies books to local schoolteachers tied to specific classes and for people with special needs. It runs programs for seniors, a mail service called Library Express, literacy programs, and reading series/clubs for students of all ages.

Besides knowledge-building, there are the buildings themselves. There are minor upgrades and major renovations being done at several of the 10 sites. In Weymouth, a new library building will open in spring 2010. “The community was involved from the start,” says Amirault. “They told us what they wanted in a library. It was an important exercise in community-building.”

As the community goes, so goes the library. The growth of one feeds the growth of the other.