Louis Bockner/News staff
Coffee, cake, and conversation will be served at the View Royal Reading Centre’s 70th anniversary this weekend.
The centre, founded in 1943, is in its third location – the previous being the basement of town hall – and holds the honour of being Greater Victoria’s longest running library.
“There ain’t nobody in town who’s got a library that old, especially one that is run by volunteers,” said vice chair Brenda Sunter a 20-year volunteer at the centre.
In 2007 the library changed its status to reading centre to get more funding but the following year the government changed policies resulting in funding being cut all together. Since then the centre has been kept open by 40 volunteers, donations from patrons, and local and provincial grants.
The centre’s chair, Doreen Jackman, says that despite the economic hardships they still manage to keep over 25,000 books on the shelves and offer a personal service that is harder to find in bigger institutions.
“At a small library like this we know our patrons and we know their tastes,” she said. “The larger libraries aren’t quite like that.”
She encourages all ages to come meet the staff, eat cake, drink coffee and celebrate 70 years of reading during the house April 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1497 Admirals Rd., suite 103b in the Admirals Walk shopping centre.