The Carindale Library held an afternoon tea today to celebrate its first birthday in its new premises.
Carindale Library Team Leader, Jennie Keppell welcomed the group and spoke about the birthday milestone and praised the library staff. She welcomed the government representatives in attendance – Cr Adrian Schrinner, Steve Minnikin MP and Ross Vasta MP.
Cr Schrinner read out some statistics for the Carindale Library. In the last 12 months there have been half a million through the doors and 550,000 loans.
“The number one thing that we get positive feedback about in our office across the road is the library and the staff in the library. That is something that we will never forget, we appreciate everything that you do in your team,” Cr Shrinner said.
“They work so hard, they love dealing with people, they love this library community. Not just the book component of it, but also the fact that this is about community and it’s about engaging with our local residents and making sure they have the services, the education and the facilities that are here.”
Sharan Harvey, Manager of Library Services told the audience that the way the community has embraced the library has made it successful. She said patrons, staff and Cr Shrinner have played a huge part in the success.
“In his role as deputy mayor, he is champion of a world class modern library service for the whole of Brisbane. We need champions like that. And this library has become a bit of a role model for other libraries, not just across Brisbane, but across other cities around Australia,” Ms Harvey said.
She said if there was one thing they would do differently, it would be to have built a large space to park all the prams.
Carindale local, Nell (pictured in the image slideshow below), came along and was described by one of the librarians as “one of the library’s best patrons” and by another librarian as “part of the furniture”. She said she loves reading the magazines and attending various events including art workshops and author talks. Nell, now a great-grandmother to a total of 19 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, says she discovered libraries when she was 10 years old and has been a regular ever since.
Cliff Wood (pictured in the image slideshow) was in attendance with his wife and friends. He is a visual artist based in Carindale who has had his artwork exhibited in the library.
Australia Post at Carindale is getting ready to move from its Westfield location after negotiations with Westfield to stay in the shopping centre failed.
