Breaking

WooHoo! So much to be celebrating about local public library services. $30,000 worth of books for the Charles Wesley Turnbull Regional Library from the Library of Congress. That’s worth another WooHoo! From the Friends of St. Thomas Public Libraries, thank you! Thank you LOC and Director Ingrid Bough from the entire St. Thomas community. These are more resources for patrons to come and check out! We hope that the titles will be put on the shelves expeditiously. The Friends extend our services to the library to help with processing the books; we have qualified librarians and other Friends members who have skills that can facilitate the process. Call on us.

Then the announcement that VITRAN bus service will extend up the hill from the Tutu Park Mall to the doors of the Regional Library beginning November 10th! WooHoo one more time!! Thank you Commissioners Dawn Henry and Gustav James. Friends and community members, that means everyone can access and use the library while it is open. Young and old, take advantage of the bus ride up the hill, during the day and after school. The library is beautiful inside and out, a great place to read and do research in the stacks or online. VITRAN please provide regular and frequent service to library. Please publish a bus schedule for the service. The Friends will post the schedule for you on our website: www.fostpl.org.

I even heard rumblings that early in the new year Regional Library hours of operation will be extended a hour to stay open until 6 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m. Little woohoo! While this hour extension is not late enough for many who want to be library users, it is a small start. Our library needs to be open on weekends. St. Thomas people, become a library patron and a regular visitor! Make a quick trip to check out books for the whole family on the way home from work. Educators, put the library on your class or team field trip list. Citizens, raise your voices and let your opinion be made known that you want the library open for your convenient use. Sign the Friends of St. Thomas Public Libraries online petition to lobby for extended hours of operation to include weekends, to get sidewalks and bus transportation up to the library; visit fostpl.org and click on the Charles Turnbull Library Petition link or sign the paper petitions when you see Friends members at local events and around town.

Libraries are vital, important places in the community. If these islands are to thrive in the future the populace, especially the children, better work hard to become literate. Face it, approximately 50% of school age children in 2014 were less than proficient in reading based on stats from the 2014 V.I. Kids Count Survey. We have to become a community that promotes and pushes READING! The more you read the more you know, the more you know the more you grow. Support libraries! Raise literacy! READ.

Judy King-Edmeade
Friends of St Thomas Public Libraries