HISTORIAN GAVIN MCLEAN REPORTS ON THE NEWLY REFURBISHED OAMARU PUBLIC LIBRARY

Remember Friday night late shopping?

For Fiona Farrell and me, Friday nights always included a trip to the Oamaru Public Library to borrow up to four books to keep us going for another week. Although born a few years apart, we discovered that we had a lot in common: warm memories of the old library, now the adjacent North Otago Museum, where Janet Frame alleged that old men sat 'petrified by the silence notices', but where we encountered only warmth, friendship and stimulation. Indeed, when told that kids were sick, kindly librarians loaded our Mums' shopping bags up with extra books to carry us through enforced idleness.

It's that civil, civilised behaviour that makes the free public library such a cornerstone of an enlightened society, so we were delighted to be invited to speak at last night's reopening of the newly refurbished Oamaru Public Library and the unveiling of the new Waitaki District Libraries logo. Oamaru's a bookish place, with its excellent bookshops and the Janet Frame House, so it wasn't surprising that 150 North Otago book people turned out to sample the food and wine, inspect the new mod cons, and above all to talk books. The good news is that several people have books 'on the stocks'.

Part of the audience at the library re-opening.

Fiona Farrell reads her memories of the old Oamaru Public Library from her book Book, Book.

At top - new Waitaki District Libraries logo, unveiled last night.