Staff and volunteers 2

We have three paid staff and the rest are volunteers: four volunteers on Wednesday; one on Thursday; one Tuesday morning (from six to eight volunteers on a permanent basis).
And some fly in from far away!
One of our volunteers, Kees De boer, comes from Holland for five months of the year and Elizabeth Walsh (pictured below) usually for two months of the year.
Also Mika Fortsch (from Germany) comes two months every second year.

Staff and volunteers

Elizabeth Walsh, Phil Washbourne, Sally Voss and Jean-Mason

The library and museum are both open from 9am to 1pm, Monday to Saturday and whatever time you go in you’re likely to see our wonderful volunteers as well as staff, library members and tourists.
The volunteers usually come in one or two days a week and they don’t mind getting their hands dirty! Living in a tropical island paradise is all very well but it’s a constant battle against dust and insects to keep the books and shelves clean.
Not only do we have bookworms but if you pick up one of the less frequently used volumes you might get showered with dry mud and possibly a grub or two. Mud wasps love to build nests in the spines of books!
In the photograph are volunteers Elizabeth Walsh and Phil Washbourne with staff members Sally Voss and Jean-Mason, the library and museum coordinator.

Sister act

Sisters library, main entrance (Photo: Don & Lee Kappleman)

It’s good to have friends and relatives and the Cook Islands library has both!
Friends of the library include benefactors and volunteers as well as individuals who donate books, CDs, DVDs and goods for fund-raising jumble sales.
As for relatives, we’re talking about sisters.
Sisters, Oregon in fact.
Our library is sort of ‘twinned’ with Sisters, an Oregon country town with a population of about 1700 although 12,000 or so live in the surrounding area. It gets its name from the Three Sisters, mountains in the Cascade Range and it was once a logging town but nowadays the main industry is tourism.
Every July Sisters hosts the biggest outdoor quilt show in the United States (quilting is the American version of tivaivai).
On the weekend of the quilt show Sisters Library holds its annual book sale - the biggest and best book sale in the region according to the library people, and they should know.
As you can see from the picture, the library is a fabulous-looking new building.
They’ve been sending books and also a Christmas cheque to the Cook Islands for many years and we are very grateful to president Jim Anderson, treasurer Zeta Seiple and the other members of the library.
Isn’t it nice to have a big sister?

Sisters Library garden and Friends of Sisters Library board members

New year, new beginnings

The library at Takamoa on a sunny February morning

Well, it's been a long time since the last post to this blog but happy new year and let's hope we manage to keep the information flowing this year.

Our friends and volunteers continue to provide a fantastic service and we would be hard pressed to cope without them. We have just finished building an outdoor lean-to, sponsored by Rotary, to be used for sculptures and stone carvings.

Donations of books continue to arrive from a variety of sources and we are able to sell duplicates and infrequently used books to raise funds and to make space for the new ones.

Books received until the end of 2009:
> Young adult books from Kathy Giuffre, sociologist from Colorado Univ, USA;

> 5 cartons of books from Santa Clarita Valley USA Rotary

> 13 cartons of books from Manukau City Libraries, Auckland;

> 203 new titles processed; 57 new titles in early Dec;
> Anuenue Canoe Club, Hawaii, donated a carton of books (as they do every year at Vaka Eiva time).