WriteNow blog: Old libraries and new libraries
by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com
The Friends of the Canton Library cleared $1,400 on its book sale. This proves a couple of things—Cantonites love to support their library (lots of people just said keep the change), and people love cheap books.
I scored a couple of trash books for the beach—a mystery and a rather lurid-looking (I hope you can tell a book by its cover) romance, and while helping sort books last week for the sale I made the biggest score of all—a British translation of a 19th century Arab—well, you could politely call it a marriage manual. We were reading aloud from it and had a wonderful time.
So if the Friends of the Canton Library call and need volunteers, go and lend a hand, because the rewards of volunteering are great indeed and you never know what you will find.
This is a good time to talk about the Canton Library, what with the Southeast Anchor Library opening a mile away. Workmen are putting a new slate roof on the library at the moment, which is why the place looks like the first scene of “The Shining” inside.
The Pratt Library and the Friends of the Canton Library are getting together to talk about a complete renovation. There will be a charrette in June—that’s a fancy word for a get-together to chat about ideas. The charrette is the first step toward getting a move on. Stay tuned—more details are forthcoming.
With the Pratt poised to invest hundreds of thousands into the Canton Branch, it goes without saying that the branch isn’t going to close, but Carla Hayden, director of the Pratt Library, said so anyway at a reception at the new Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown on April 17.
Still, the best way to ensure that the branch—and all Pratt branches—stay open is to put pressure on the City Council to adequately fund the library and its cousin, the Department of Recreation and Parks. For decades Pratt and parks have been the whipping boys at budget time, because so much of the money that comes in is already spoken for.
There is a certain mandated amount the city has to pay for schools, for instance, and it must put up the matching money for roads and public works. So when it comes right down to it, when the boys downtown need to cut a million or two to make the budget float, there sit the library and parks system with no mandates to protect them.
Election years are a no-brainer—none of the politicians cuts Pratt and parks in election years. Off-years is when we need to let them know they are toast if they cut Pratt and parks.
The Southeast Anchor Library, the new building at the corner of Eastern and Conkling, opens on Monday. There is a special section devoted to the opening lurking somewhere in this paper. You may want to give it a look. The first special event is a visit by author Masha Hamilton on Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m. She will read from and sign copies of her new book “The Camel Bookmobile.”
Star Wars fans will want to visit on Saturday afternoon, when the library will show the movies all afternoon. You can pose for a picture with an Imperial Storm Trooper and have some birthday cake.
Harry Potter fans should mark their calendars for Friday afternoon, June 15, 2-5 p.m. That’s when the Knight Bus, the triple-decker bus from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” visits the Southeast Anchor Library.
The Knight Bus, which is hitting the road to promote the last book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is going to 37 libraries nationwide. Residents of the Baltimore metropolitan area have two choices if they want to see it, the Cockeysville branch of the Baltimore County Public Library or the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown, so there will be hundreds of people at the library that day. Come early, get your car parked and have a meal or a snack or shop.
