By Elma Rubright

Our library is partly housed in a building that was originally a residence and boat shed, and at one time claimed the dubious distinction of being the only library in B.C. with a bathtub!

As the population grew over the years, the building was expanded, repaired and adapted to accommodate increased activity. By 2007, we were the ninth busiest library in B.C. and had obviously outgrown our space. It took some imaginative rearranging to make things continue to work. An extra shelf was added on top of the stacks and, when that wasn’t enough, new stacks were squeezed in.

A portion of the basement was remodeled to become the children’s section. Magazines were moved into the vacated children’s area, and the magazine area, in turn, became home to books on tape and CDs. The non-fiction section was culled and consolidated to free up some space for the fiction and mystery sections.

It has been rob Peter to pay Paul over and over again, until now we have the Salt Spring Archives in a back corner of the basement with no climate control; the board room has been revamped to house the teen section, which means we have no meeting space, large or small.

The bindery has become a multi-purpose room, home to the cataloguers in one corner, inter-library loan (ILL) in another, our computer techies in a third corner, with the fourth corner now the bindery.

The bindery room is hot and crowded, and it has only one window. It does have a long table down the centre, which provides some extra work space, but different groups must share that space. The inter-library loan team can’t use the table to package up books while the bindery volunteers are rebinding books, and the cataloguers can’t stack books on the table when ILL is preparing their mail-outs.

The library board members now have no place to meet unless they schedule meetings during school hours when they can use the teen section. Ditto for the book-buying committees and others who need a meeting room (writer’s groups, second language practice, etc.).

It’s the same thing upstairs. We now have an office for our librarians, but they must share it between themselves and with the bookkeeper.

The computer section has been expanded which meant juggling the reference section. The staff room is also a storage area, cloakroom, mailroom and workroom for individuals.

Two cannot work together in that room; it isn’t large enough. Reading tables have been tucked into remote spots and their use often blocks access to the shelves

Our desk training is done on the job, which means that space for two, check-in and check-out, now has three people milling about, stepping on each other’s toes and tripping over the backpacks of patrons.

Fortunately, the volunteers are a sociable bunch and somehow we make it work.

However, there is just so much juggling and fixing that can be done, and we have done all that and then some.

We need a new building with space for current activities, for future expansion of the collection and for new programs. We can have such a library if a majority of island residents vote yes on Dec. 5. Can we count on you?

The writer is a Salt Spring library volunteer.