It was February 15, 2023, when the roof of our local library collapsed. A library is the heart of a small town. It's a meeting place, somewhere to go when you have a few minutes to kill in town or want to meet up with friends....A library was one of the first places we located with every move in our rather transient family history. We even visited the local Misawa, Japan library - though 90% of the books were in Japanese. Libraries have been essential to our homeschool journey as well as our sense of community and continuity in our nomadic family history.
We have missed our library. We have been eagerly following news about a re-opening. We were excited to visit the new location today.
Yes, we have gone to Wasilla and picked up books...but we are a family who routinely visits the library 3 or 4x a week. Since February we have gone once every few weeks and picked up huge armloads of books. It just wasn't as satisfying.
Librarians have been working for months to open an interim location. They had to salvage, box and move all the books which survived the roof collapse. Most of the library's collection is now at a storage location. They set up space in a vacant building for a store front. There are some shelves, seating, computers, reading nooks and books in this building. The collection consists of a small selection from most genres, and new books. For the majority of our selections, we will go online and order, librarians will go to the storage unit to collect books which we can pick up the next day.
I had an unfortunate experience with a book on the hood of my van in April. Books simply don't ride well on hoods of vans. I've retraced the drive many times and can't find the book. I have waited to see if someone would turn it in - they haven't. I've ordered the book, but it's STILL not shipped to me. It was nice to talk to librarians I KNOW who KNOW I am not an irresponsible sort and can be trusted with books. We worked it out. The girls had gone off to explore.
I found them in their happy place. LOL
The computers now have their own room. The natural light is great.
This will be a great place to study with the Alaska collection.
We really like the new library home. The town is in the process of raising money and submitting grants for a new library - but this is a huge step forward. We are so thankful to all the librarians who have worked so hard to get us to this spot. This library felt like a house...a home...If only there were a big, old Victorian home in town to turn into a library. LOL
It has been an overcast day. It seemed right to stop and grab drinks on the way home. Our own celebration.
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