Ever since I remember, I have loved the library. Because I grew up on the Hart, we frequented the old Nechako branch location when it was housed in a small shack in the Kelly Road secondary school parking lot. On special days, we made the trek downtown to the main branch of the Library. I love everything about both branches of the library. The Nechako branch is easily accessible and it has a wide selection of books to read. The Bob Harkins branch of the library is enormous, easily surpassing the main branch of the Victoria library. I love the slightly sketchy parking lot and the grotty staircase leading up the main floor of the library. It smells the same now as it did when I was a kid. I love the wide staircase up to the second floor and I love the nooks and crannies between the stacks where you can get lost for hours.
I spent a lot of time in the library when I was on maternity leave with my son going to Baby time and Story time. The library staff are great, you get to meet and spend time with other moms and you can buy books for a quarter. Who can ask for anything more?
Well, for a long time, I was frustrated with the library's paperback trashy sections. In most libraries, the mass market paperbacks were housed on wire racks in their respective genres (mostly) and roughly alphabetized (kind of). To fast readers, like myself, who tend to burn through books like they're going out of style, this sort of cataloguing style was torturous. Imagine my sheer delight when I walked up the excellent stairs at the main branch after their recent renovation and found the underappreciated genre paperbacks were on shelves - and they were alphabetized. I was speechless and so very excited at the same time. So I grabbed the nearest librarian that I could find, motioned towards the beautiful shelves and told her, "This is awesome." She looked at me beaming and she replied, "Isn't it fantastic? The books are in the catalogue too." Bliss.
To the Librarians and staff at the Prince George Public Library (both branches): "You are awesome!" Thank you for being such an important part of the community (our spine maybe?) and thank you for everything that you have contributed to Prince George over the years. And thank you for alphabetizing the mass markets. We appreciate it.
