The Cottage Branch Library

The Cottage Branch Library was founded in 1993* in Constance Bay, Ontario.  It was a project built on a passion for books and order.  It was run enthusiastically, cooperatively and orderly by Mark, Leah, Heather, Kelly, Steph and Sean.  There was one other possible employee, Scott, but the author believes he may, at the time of the founding of the Library, have been more interested in any young ladies that lived in the area surrounding the Library rather than in silly books.

Books were catalogued, filed accordingly, and dusted occasionally.  Borrowers were issued official library cards, paid late fees, and all personal information and books borrowed were written up succinctly in the library journal.  The staff was usually quite understanding and lenient when it came to late fees:  they usually cut them in half if the amount had become too exorbitant.

This seemed only fair as the books had actually been bought in the first place by the borrowers.  And that the borrowers were relatives of the staff, so if their fees were too high, the staff might lose out on their weekly allowances.

My cousins and I ran the Cottage Branch Library for many years out of the basement of our grandmother’s cottage.  We had quite a selection of books that I liked to show off to any newcomers to the Bay: Non-fiction, fiction, children’s book, reference, magazines, and in the spirit of Trudeau-ism we even had a French section (Quebec was just across the river after all)!

I spent many a happy hour down there with my cousins pouring over our collection and excitedly planning how to expand (these plans mostly revolved around nagging parents, aunts and uncles to bring books from their houses and donate them to the library).  It was the smell of books that always held me down there for hours. The smell of old books, and most of these were that.  Not collectors editions unfortunately, but they had that dusty smell that any Chapters sorely lacks.

As we all got older and followed in Scotts’ footsteps my youngest cousin Steph was the last to be keeper of the library; toiling away on totaling overdue fines as the rest of us played board games or perhaps actually started to read a book from the non-fiction section.  Then even Steph found new distractions and the library lay dormant and quiet for many years.

When the cottage was sold this year to my aunt and uncle the Library was slowly cleared out.  I have a few books now at home with masking tape at the bottom of the spine showing their section and underneath that, the first three letters of the author’s last name (eg. Fic/Lud – for the game/set/match series).  I believe the others were sold in a garage sale and those little pieces of masking tape that were so lovingly and precisely attached by little Clarke fingers will be ignored, or worse - peeled off, by their new owners.

But, as I learned today, these books and the Cottage Branch Library live on in my memories and were rehashed halfway across the world in rural Uganda.

The Ankole Western library received the first chunk of a huge shipment of second hand books (18,000 will be the total!!!!) earlier this week.  Somehow they got past me and only today was I ushered into the library to behold the new acquisitions. 

There, filling the back quarter of the library, were at least 200 boxes of books.  Not Chapters books, but old books – books that have dust on them.  Although, there are some newer ones - I did find one amazing looking Chemistry text book from 2005.

I swooned.  The librarian laughed.  He wanted to wait for the Principal to open the boxes. She wouldn’t be back for at least three more days!!  This would not do!  I convinced him to let me look in just one…. One more?.... ok, just ooone more?

I got three in total and that is enough for today.  I told the librarian he had a new assistant whether he liked it or not.  If my cousins want to come over we could relive old times: “The Uganda Branch Library” perhaps?

 *Not sure of this date, any input from Nanny or Mom here?