The new public library remains a priority even though the proposed location for the facility is currently being used as a high school, according to Dr. Marcia Potter, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture.
“I can’t give you an exact date as to when the library will be back up and running, but the library will definitely be on the agenda to be set back up,” Dr. Potter said last Thursday during a meeting for education stakeholders on the hurricane recovery process. “We can’t not have libraries. Some people have said we don’t need a library. I don’t agree with that. In our ministry, yes, it is a priority.”
At a House of Assembly meeting in September 2016, Premier Dr. Orlando Smith (R-at large) confirmed that the branch would be moving from Road Town to the old Clarence Thomas Limited Building in Pasea Estate, and explained that $379,200 had been approved for the cost of moving and paying rent at the new location.
In January 2017, work began on the move to the new site. However, after Hurricane Irma, that facility was remodeled to house Elmore Stoutt High School, leaving the future of the library uncertain.
Endangered documents
At the meeting last week, Chief Librarian Suzanne Greenaway said she did not see libraries outlined in the recovery plan, but said that it is essential that students understand information literacy.
She noted that the Bookmobile, which had been filling in while the main library was closed, was also damaged in Hurricane Irma.
Ms. Greenaway said the library is important for more than just books.
“We have documents in our Caribbean Studies Unit; documents from the Nottinghams in the 1700s that are unpublished and irreplaceable; documents that we don’t even allow the public to handle because of how fragile they are,” she explained. “People meet me on the street and ask me, ‘When is the public library going to be open?’ What am I supposed to tell my staff? They are worried about the future of the library.”
Other meeting attendees with an interest in genealogy also chimed in about the public’s need to access those historical documents.
Brodrick Penn, chairman of the Disaster Recovery Coordination Committee, agreed with Dr. Potter that the library is important.
“We need to appreciate that we are in the planning process and that there is a continuum. The public libraries are an important process of this,” he said. “Your role in terms of how you want to see the library services is very critical.”
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