Library has 30 reasons to pop the champagne… Quietly

Saturday 01 June 2019

Anniversary celebrations usually involve popping champagne or clinking wine glasses, but libraries have always been a bit more reserved – blowing your trumpet in there wouldn’t go down well.

But if ever there was an occasion when the staff might feel entitled to let their hair down, the 30th anniversary of the Queen’s opening of the Jersey Library in Halkett Place is surely it.

Perhaps the reason for their modesty is deference to those old enough to remember what libraries used to be like before the introduction of new technology, the creation of social spaces for meetings and lectures, and the expansion of the service into the community.

Back in 1989 no-one could have envisaged the technological changes that, 30 years on, would allow readers to ‘borrow’ more than 28,000 eBooks, magazines and comics during the course of a year without leaving their own homes.    

Pictured: More than 34,000 islanders use Jersey Library's services.

But the introduction of eBooks is one of the less immediately obvious developments. Retired States Architect Graeme Hutchison, responsible for the Halkett Place building, remembers the old library when it moved in 1989 from its Royal Square location which it had occupied for more than 100 years. 

“Designing the library back in the 80s was a really interesting project. At that time, the ‘brown card system’ was used to check books in and out but we knew that computerised records were on the way so we future proofed the building to allow for the necessary cabling to be installed when the time came.  

It’s great to see how the building has accommodated so many new services and continues to be a fantastic facility for the Island,” he said. 

There are currently over 34,000 active members who use the Library’s services on a regular basis, borrowing books, joining in story sessions, taking part in workshops, working with technology in the Barclays Eagle Lab or quietly studying in the Reference Library.  Between 800 and 1000 people visit the library on a daily basis. 

Pictured: The Library first opened in Jersey in 1989.

Chief Librarian Ed Jewell said: “While technology has changed beyond recognition since 1989, libraries continue to have an invaluable part to play in inspiring lifelong learning, supporting health and wellbeing, and enriching the island’s economic and cultural life.”

Visits to schools, topic resource loans, children’s events and activities enable the Library Service to reach out to young people across the island, supporting literacy and a love of reading.  Over 11,000 library members are children and over 2,000 of them took part in the Summer Reading Challenge in 2018. 

Last year library staff also made 792 visits to homes and residential homes to deliver books and other resources and the mobile library makes 25 stops every week across the island to offer services to people in the wider community. 

Pictured top: The Queen at Jersey Library's opening.