One of my favourite parts of my job is introducing new people to library services. I love being able to show people the very exciting resources that are available for free to anyone with a library card which is also free to any resident of Essex County. I feel like Santa Claus listing off all of the free resources, particularly when people erroneously think there are charges for programs, cards, or borrowing materials and I get to give them the good news: they get tons of value for free.
Class visits are one of the best ways to introduce a lot of people to the library at once and on Thursday, August 11th I got to introduce some outstanding newcomers to the Windsor Public Library: a group of teens from a day camp for Syrian refugees. I must say, these were some of the most polite, well-behaved teens to ever come to the library and they were a pleasure to host.
The kids were so enthusiastic and were thrilled by the library resources available to them. One of the girls found a book in Arabic and refused to put it down, carrying it with her excitedly during the duration of the tour, others were most excited to find language learning resources so that they could improve their English and picture books to share with younger siblings.
In an interview with the CBC regarding the visit the camp organizer, Hiba Hijazi, summed up the teen’s reaction “They said, ‘wow! Is that a library?’ They were amazed by the sized [sic] of it. The display of it.” The teens were excited to get their own library cards and are now ready to use the WPL’s resources.
Teachers, now is a great time to book class visits for September. If you’re interested in booking a class visit please call 519-255-6770 to set something up! We even have forms so that students can have library cards ready for them to pick up when they come in. It’s never too early to get started at the library!
