Kensington Central Library – December 2013

Kensington Central Library

Hello to you all from the staff at Kensington Central Library. We’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you’re planning on visiting us over the holidays please check our Christmas and New Year opening hours first.

We’ve had another busy month so read on to find out what’s been happening.

The Open University

Sandeep Dhaliwal, one of our Tri-Borough Reference Librarians blogged about The Open University coming to Kensington Central Library last week to deliver one of their Information Events.

Over to Sandeep to tell us more…..

The Open University Information Event on Monday 9 December at Kensington Central Reference Library

The Open University at Kensington Central Reference Library

I am pleased to say that we had 43 visitors to this event with over two-thirds attendees from West London.

Two of the very helpful members of staff from The Open University

The diverse age range of the attendees highlighted that learning is a life-long exercise – people aged in their early 20s to the over 60s came along.

Receiving advice from The Open University

If you missed this event, there is another in the new year at Chelsea Library which will take place in March 2014.

For more information please visit The Open University’s website.

To see what other events we have check out our What’s On page on our website.

Sandeep Dhaliwal

Tri-borough Reference Librarian

New signage at Kensington Central Library

It’s been a long time coming but we finally have some new signage in the adult lending and children’s libraries. I really enjoyed working with the borough’s designer and the graphics company to ensure we got the signage we needed. It was fascinating learning about fonts, types of signs and even staying late to supervise the installation. We really hope our customers find the library easier to use.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…..

The staff have done an excellent job at decorating the library for this special time – hope you like our decorations!

We also had a very special visitor on Friday 20 December – Father Christmas made time in his busy schedule to attend our baby rhyme time. Kids and adults alike very pleased to see him and he felt like a celebrity with all the photos that were taken!

Father Christmas at Kensington Central Library!

At our last story and craft session on Saturday 21 December – the children had great fun making Christmas wreaths using paper plates, green paper and red glitter.

So Happy Christmas from us all!

Jodie Green

Jodie Green

Lending Librarian

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The Chelsea Blog – September/October 2013

Chelsea Library

Welcome to the latest blog post from the staff at Chelsea Library. Over to Daniel Jeffreys to tell us more about what’s been happening.

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising

Winter can be a challenging time: the lack of light (those early morning starts in dripping darkness). A sense of hibernation sets in, compounded by my re-reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising where snow falls continually over the Thames valley. This is a perfect winter read. In this gripping children’s book about the Holy Grail and Arthurian legends Christmas is the time where the battle between light and dark takes place. It is quite easy to imagine The Old Ones fighting it out in the residential gardens and nearby parks. This book is particularly good because it examines the Pagan beliefs behind Christmas. I would be interested to hear of any other wintry recommendations.

Coffee morning

One antidote to the seasonal chill is our coffee morning every Wednesday at 10.30am.  Word is spreading but please mention it to any of your more discriminating readers who might fancy a chat and a slice of organic carrot cake.  The group is diverse, a lady with an in-depth knowledge of cakes and pastries, an aeronautical expert and a lady who refers to her ‘chequered career’ but as yet no one has been bold enough to find out what exactly it entails. We have had presentations from a health worker and the community police.

Chelsea Children’s Library

The children’s library has been extremely busy. We had over 100 adults and children for one of our electrified baby rhyme time sessions (every Thursday at 11am). Babies have an innate sense of rhythm, much like their ability to swim, and it is great watching the toddlers crawl and wobble and fall over.

The story craft event this month was themed around frogs. Senior Customer Services Assistant, Diana designed some action frogs, bunched up and ready to spring with long lolling tongues and crazy rolling eyes. The stories had a twist—some frogs don’t want to be rescued with a kiss and turned into handsome Princes. They prefer the damp and solitude of their ponds.

Book sale

We had a brilliant but hectic book sale last week. Our readers were amazed at the bargains they were able to snap up.

Daniel Jeffreys

Customer Services Assistant