The public library represents something different for everyone. For some, it’s a place to go to read the newspaper, pick up the new best-seller, or check their email. It’s a place to call home and a refuge from the world beyond its doors. Sometimes it’s a bit of both.
The following testimonials speak of people’s love for the library, in particular the Rosemount branch of the Ottawa Public Library/Bibliothèque publique d’Ottawa. Read on!
It is my pleasure to offer my testimonial to the value of the Rosemount Library to our community. It is easy to assess its significance to my family when my children were young. Going to the library was a weekly event and their current love of reading can be laid at the door of such a welcoming and fun place.
My real testimonial here though is not for my own family – a middle class family with professional parents eager to bring reading to their children. It is about what this library has meant to those in Hintonburg of not quite privileged backgrounds. Some years ago a father and his young children moved into a small apartment on our block. For a variety of reasons the father was not able to get his kids to the library and instead I did it with the help of other neighbours.
Bringing his children to the Rosemount Library was a new and different experience. The librarian helped with getting the cards when the father was not able to get the requisite signatures on the forms for his children. Rosemount Library became a refuge for these children and our weekly visits to such a warm and inviting place were a highlight to them. Being there with these children opened my eyes to the other kids of similar backgrounds for whom Rosemount became the ‘go-to’ place after school. Computer access which the kids did not have at home enhanced their school work and the books borrowed for pleasurable reading enriched their lives and helped immeasurably with their success at school.
The children’s father had never been read to, did not know the value of going to the library and in the beginning was unsure of the value of this time. By the end of the summer months he had become convinced and even began to use the library himself.
Having Rosemount Library in our community and a community librarian has made a huge difference.
Paulette Dozois
168 Irving Ave, Ottawa
March 2016
What I have always loved about the Rosemount Library is the beautiful, tall windows, with the light pouring in. It was a pleasure to sit there and read a good book in that sunny room. I can’t think of another library like it. It is unique, a gem. I often thought how wonderful it would be to sit by one of those lovely windows, reading and enjoying a cup of hot tea.
Julie Maloney
March 3, 2016
The time-line of my reading life has bright markers on several periods: opening up the first issue of the weekly Eagle comic in 1950 in England; listening to my parents reading Nicholas Nickleby to us as a bedtime story; and being introduced to the Rosemount Library in 1958 as a thirteen-year-old boy just moved onto Foster Street in Hintonburg. Rosemount was a mere 300 yards from us, and became a delicious smorgasbord on which I could gorge my appetite for escape, almost without limit. My parents were lifelong readers and made sure that we were fully indoctrinated to the library ethic – helping us find books we would like, avoiding the one bane of library use – overdue books and the associated fines. I can only assume that today hundreds of kids in Hintonburg find the same pleasures in the same library. May they never lose this vital and local community resource!
Libraries bring people together. I understood that even as a child flipping through picture books under the Rosemount library’s high windows. Everyone was welcome.
A library teaches us to share, to borrow and to lend, and these are the building blocks of community. Growing up with a library within walking distance helped me to become a community member, not to mention a courageous reader. Rosemount is much more than a building full of books.
Jennifer Kingsley
Feb 19, 2016
John was a young actor and I was an English graduate when we moved into the Rosemount neighbourhood. The real estate agent highlighted the library’s nearness. Thirty-three years and grown children later, our branch is still a cherished asset.
Laurie Koensgen
Feb 19, 2016
I love Rosemount Library and use it frequently. I also love the sense of community, going there and seeing kids sitting around reading books or getting help with homework. The staff are incredible. I’m proud of our local library.
Deborah Lorenzin
Feb 19, 2016
I have checked out the Rosemount Branch because I travel to the Carlingwood Branch almost daily to use my laptop at a carrel where I can plug it in and utilize the WiFi for 6 to 8 hours. This isn’t convenient and I’d be delighted to use the Rosemount Branch instead. Unfortunately, my exploration of the Rosemount Branch indicated that there were only a couple of very tiny tables (barely large enough for my laptop and no space for papers or other paraphenalia) located next to plugs, so I gave up on using this closer branch and still schlep to Carlingwood. I understand that this situation is due to the lack of space in the branch and not to a lack of desire to accommodate users with their own laptops/tablets. It would be wonderful if the proposed renovations could accommodate the needs of users like myself.
Joanne Prindiville
February 22, 2016