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[Victoria Watcher]

With two backpacks and a gym bag — zippers open — strapped to his body, Sean McLaughlin made a beeline for the science-fiction section at the Times Colonist Book Sale on Saturday morning.

 

He got to the sale location at the Victoria Curling Club at 1:50 a.m. Saturday and was fifth in line for the big event, which started at 9 a.m.

 

McLaughlin said he would be looking to fill his packs and bag with books from famous sci-fi authors like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and also lesser-known names in the genre.

 

And the price was right for the hard-cover titles he was seeking, McLaughlin said.

 

“At four bucks a pop you can’t really go wrong.”

 

Children’s books and soft covers are $2 each at the sale, which continues Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

Just before heading inside, McLaughlin said that his early arrival wasn’t too hard to take.

 

“I work shifts so I’m still kind of on my night rotation right now.”

 

He said he decided to get in line well in advance after finding a “huge throng” of people at the sci-fi section last year, when he didn’t get to the lineup until 7:30 a.m.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...aderie-10610456

[Victoria Watcher]

Thirty-five years after her official retirement, centenarian Joyce Wilby remains not only the chief librarian in Alert Bay, but the library’s best resource — a walking, talking archive of the town’s events and people.

 

Born on May 21, 1925, in Victoria and raised in Vancouver, Wilby was celebrated at a birthday party last month at the local legion, with family guests including her two “kids,” age 70 and 73 and most of her four grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

 

“It was wonderful,” said Wilby.

 

Library clerk Wendy White said 66 years after Wilby started sorting books at the library, which has about 334 members who borrow about 3,900 items annually, she is far from a figurehead.

 

She’s the heart, soul and brains of the operation.

 

“This woman is literally my boss,” said White, explaining Wilby works daily at the library, an historic two-storey waterfront building that sits on pylons just off the ocean. It is open 1 p.m. to 4 p.m, Tuesday through Saturday.

 

“She does the payroll, the contracts, the reports, the ordering of the books, all the archiving, the business plan, the whole strategic plan, and she is the board of directors main contact,” said White, one of two part-time staff members.

 

Tourists who come in off the street to find out more about relatives often get a personal account from Wilby herself who either knew them or married them — yes, she was also a marriage commissioner.

 

Jacqueline Van Dyk, who formerly ran the Public Library Services Branch and got to know librarians across the province, said Wilby is an inspiration.

 

Van Dyk, currently director of Library Services for North Vancouver District Public, said she met Wilby several years ago while provincial librarian because she was curious to see a library with an annual budget of less than $25,000.

 

“I was impressed with the full services her library provided and, augmented by provincial services and programs, it was a truly amazing community-focused library,” she said, adding it’s humbling to think Wilby hasn’t drawn a salary for 35 years. ”Joyce is a pretty special human being and deserves to be celebrated.”

 

 

https://www.timescol...o-quit-10777783

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2025 - 06:30 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

No talking in the Sooke library – staff fear cuts to jobs, hours, programs

Proposed changes to the operating hours of the Sooke Library have many workers fearing for their jobs and the future of library programs

 

https://www.vicnews....rograms-8063033

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 June 2025 - 08:37 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I went into the library yesterday.  

 

I asked the librarian if they had that new Trump book about how to deport all the illegals.

 

Without missing a beat the librarian said "get the freak out of here, and don't ever come back".

 

I said "ya, that's the one, do you have it in paperback?"

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 June 2025 - 09:20 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

 I was excited about the Mandel Public Library when I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, in early 2023. The city was on the rise, and Fodor’s Travel had named Mandel the fourth most beautiful public library in America.

 

Then I started going there.

 

I watched a security guard tell a man who appeared to be homeless that he wasn’t allowed back for another month. In the new books section, a guy yelled into his phone that he’d been kicked off the bus for arguing with a driver. Other homeless people slept in chairs and snored; the smell made you hold your breath.

Beautiful though it was, with high rounded ceilings and a coffee shop in the lobby, I wondered how people could use this library as a place to read and study. The answer, I soon discovered, is that increasingly, they don’t.

 

Between 2012 and 2019, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, visits to the Mandel Library declined 27 percent, and total circulation—the number of items, including e-books, borrowed by library patrons—fell 26 percent.

 

And even as newcomers poured into South Florida, the trend has not reversed, with visits falling another 31 percent since 2019, meaning that visits have declined a staggering 50 percent. The statistic showing a dramatic increase, on the other hand, is not the one you want to see. According to the library’s director, Lisa Hathaway, “behavior incident reports”—everything from sleeping in the library to harassment of other patrons as well as staff—have risen by 41 percent since 2019.

 

“It’s another reason,” Hathaway told me, “we hired a social worker.”

 

My local library is hardly an aberration. All over the country, libraries are seeing fewer visitors and more problems. Per-resident visits to public libraries fell by 56.6 percent in the 10 years ending in 2022. Meanwhile, a report from the Urban Libraries Council found that between 2019 and 2023, security incidents rose at its 115 member libraries, even as visits fell another 35 percent.

 

It’s not a coincidence, of course, that visits are down while incidents are up. When librarians talk about the decreasing visit numbers—which they prefer not to—they say that fewer people are coming to libraries because Americans are reading less. But with print sales up and bookstores making a comeback, that explanation doesn’t make sense. Rather, a major reason libraries are in decline is that, as a former librarian wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2007, libraries have become “a de facto daytime shelter for the city’s homeless.” Indeed, when libraries research what people dislike about their institution, they often find that the homeless population now congregating in the library is the biggest complaint.

 

In recent years, as it has become clear that progressive solutions to quality of life problems have usually backfired, cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have begun retreating from them. But not librarians. Rather than resisting their emerging role as social worker and first responder to the homeless, they have embraced it, to the detriment of everyone else who wants to use a library.

 

 

https://www.thefp.co...-public-library

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 July 2025 - 03:40 AM.

[Barrister]

I have been very happy with the library services here. Something that seems to work really well and provides great value.

[lanforod]

I have been very happy with the library services here. Something that seems to work really well and provides great value.

 

But do you frequent the libraries here that have homeless congregating in them? Especially the downtown one?

[Victoria Watcher]

Victoria library branch marks anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The free exhibit will be at the downtown branch until Aug. 15

https://www.vicnews....ombings-8166929

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 July 2025 - 12:54 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

It’ll be the 90th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre in 2027. I’m sure there will be a similar exhibit.



20,000 women and children raped, 30,000+ POWs illegally executed, 20,000 falsely accused male civilians executed as soldiers, 12,000 to 60,000 civilians murdered inside the city walls, 30,000 civilians murdered in the surrounding countryside

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 July 2025 - 12:57 PM.

[Barrister]

I have not seen a lot of homeless in the Oak Bay branch. Cant think of any for that matter.

[Victoria Watcher]

Revive old home movies at Esquimalt library branch lab

 

 

Family photos, home movies and “memories locked away on aging tapes or film” can now be rejuvenated with a new digital-media lab at the Greater Victoria Public Library’s Esquimalt branch.

 

The Lab: Preserve Your Past is self-serve and free to use, and was introduced at an event held last Thursday at the branch at #101-503 Park Place.

 

It will allow library-card holders aged 10 and over to convert personal analog items into shareable digital formats.

 

Those 14 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

 

“The Lab makes it possible for library users to ­preserve their personal and family stories,” said GVPL chief executive Maureen Sawa. “By providing free access to digitization tools, we are helping residents safeguard priceless memories and share them with future generations.”

 

The Lab includes equipment that can digitize ­photographs, negatives, slides, VHS tapes, MiniDV, Hi8, Digital8 home movies and audio cassettes.

 

The files are saved directly to USB drives, external hard drives or cloud storage — which ensures privacy and control over content.

 

The service is part of the GVPL’s commitment to expanding access to creative technologies and digital-literacy resources.

 

It has had funding support from the province, the Victoria Foundation, the Friends of the Greater ­Victoria Public Library (which was active until 2023), the ­Township of Esquimalt and anonymous donors.

 

 

https://www.timescol...ibrary-11240185

 

 

 

 

the Friends of the Greater ­Victoria Public Library (which was active until 2023)

 

 

 

What happened here?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 September 2025 - 03:37 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Here’s the one-week warning: Someone else wants your books. (And frankly, you need some new ones anyway, but more on that later.)

Yes, book lovers, it’s almost time for the annual Times Colonist book drive and sale.

Take a critical look at your shelves to see which books would look better on a shelf in someone else’s home.

We have been doing the sale every year since 1998, and we’re not about to stop.

Through all these years, our goal has been to help school libraries and literacy projects.

Literacy is more important than ever, and should not be taken for granted.

People with weak literacy skills will miss opportunities — for jobs, for relationships, and for the mind-expanding potential of a well-written novel.

Over the years, we have distributed more than $7 million, money we made by selling donated books.

The process will start with a book drop-off weekend. Mark your calendars for April 18 and 19.

 

https://www.timescol...d-sale-11972924

[Victoria Watcher]

This is a really good article on the TC book sale this weekend.

 

https://www.timescol...k-sale-12228177