Two objectives: A Municipal Library up to Standards and the Preservation of the Roussell House

Brownsburg-Chatham, Québec, Canada
We are using Google Translate to adapt the blog from the French version. As we are volunteers, we'll try as best we can to edit the texts so they are comprehensible. Thank you for your understanding. citbrownsburg-chatham@live.ca

About Us

We are a non-partisan coalition of citizens of Brownsburg-Chatham, who have at heart the fate of our library and our architectural heritage. We believe that the library should be relocated to a bigger house, better equipped and be endowed with sufficient human resources to meet the needs of the population. The Roussell house (Principale/des Érables) is one of the last heritage building of interest to be located downtown.

The coalition has acknowledged the lack of support among the population for the relocalisation of the library in the Russell house. We now consider them as two separate files.

Luc Bélisle, Hélène Boivin, Michel Brisson, Jean Careau, Gilles Desforges, Cynthia Dubé, Anik Ferland, Pierre Gagnon, François Jobin, Sophie LaRoche, Diane Leduc, Mylène Mondou, Gilbert Poupart, Maurice Rochon, Claire Thivierge, Kathleen Wilson.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

School Library and Public Library

Some may believe, rightly or wrongly, that our elected officials confuse school library and public library. Both are essential. They are certainly complementary. Here is what said the Ministry of Culture and Communications (originally in French):


The school library has an educational role that distinguishes it from the public library. Thus, the type of services offered by the school library is directly related to the implementation of curriculum, hence the importance of having in each school a place accessible to teachers and students where to find collections consisting of basic reference books. The school library does not yet meet all the needs of staff and students, and if we want the student to continue reading and using libraries after graduation, it is at school that these habits must be developed. Students should therefore be encouraged to read not only by obligation, but out of curiosity and pleasure. To do this, the school library should make available a varied collection including works of fiction and documentary. Cooperation between municipality and the school is a solution to enrich the choices offered by the school library. We must also develop an early habit of frequenting the public library.
Ministère de la culture et des communications, 1998

Experience suggests that, in general, a public library located in a school has less members from general public. Is this due to how the premises are organized and where the entrance is situated? Is it because the public perceives the institution to be addressing students more than them? Is it a matter of opening hours?

Certainly, a library such as that of Bromont * allows one to dream with its green architecture and its open spaces. It calls to drop any reluctance to the coexistence of the school entity and the public, at least for those sensitive to the green arguments.

* 6049 population in 2006 according to Statistics Canada





Let us recall here that the coalition We Deserve Better is open to any reasonable proposal for relocating the municipal library. There would then be a need to find a vocation to the Roussell house.

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