For the love of the libraries – Invermere
Submitted by Blair McFarlane
Community Outreach Library Assistant
The Invermere Public Library is Where Our Community Gathers. This has been our slogan, along with Where Imaginations Soar, for as long as I can remember. What does this mean for the library in a time where we can’t gather?
It means we really miss that quality time with our patrons! We miss spending time with those who attended our adult programming from our Craft Connections Club crew, our Senior’s Tea regulars & book club members. I have really, really missed our youth programming — our Ozobots are sitting patiently in their box waiting to be powered up, and who knows when the Lego will get played with again. Pre-pandemic, our Saturday morning free play sessions were bringing lots of families together and the library was full of laughter and joy. Not to mention all my wonderful little story time friends gathering on Thursdays with your smiles, laughs and curiosity. Singing Slippery Fish to a camera is not nearly as much as fun as singing with all of you! And the kiddos help drown out my off-key singing!
Here’s a little poem I wrote about missing story time as it is National Poetry Month:
Oh woe! Oh woe! I miss you so!
When you all jump up on your toes
To sing and wiggle, then listen and giggle
To a story or two or three!
Soon we can all read together under a tree!
Letting our imaginations soar has helped us move to the virtual world with everyone else. We have live Story time videos & Kootenay-wide Zoom book club, as well as our online reading tracker, Beanstack—check out our Spring Into Summer Challenge live now with colouring contests, book logging and more. We have grandparents coming to check out children’s books to read to their grandkids over video chat. But it’s not the same as meeting in person. Screen time is much more draining than a live interaction with great people. We all know that.
However, there is hope that we are nearing a future in which we can gather. The warmer weather means outdoor programs can resume soon. I’m planning to begin outdoor story time sometime in mid-May (keep an eye out on our social media/website as nothing is set in stone). With the whole community vaccination, open until May 5, hopefully we are that much closer to gathering in person and connecting as a community in a way that fills up our buckets instead of draining them.
While we can’t gather yet, I urge you all to remember what’s at the heart of the library: our community. We’re all worn out. We’re all feeling some form of isolation and division. But we are still a community, and we all have the capacity for kindness and empathy towards everyone we encounter. Let’s remember to respect one another and work together to get through this, so that we can all gather at the library soon.
