THE future of a community library located at Portarlington Neighbourhood House remains in limbo as the house gets ready to relocate to Parks Hall.
\nThe Portarlington Neighbourhood House will become a new tenant at the hall in September, relocating the majority of its programs to the important community facility.
\nBut Hetty Anbeek, who has operated the community library for the past 10 years, said the City of Greater Geelong did not have any current plans or space at its new Parks Hall \u201ccommunity hub\u201d to house the 1500-book resource.
\n\u201cWe are in limbo,\u201d Ms Anbeek said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a pity we can\u2019t move it straight away, but hopefully there will be a place at Parks Hall in a while, because we don\u2019t want the library to have to stay here with the neighbourhood house over there.\u201d
\nEarlier this year, the City of Greater Geelong took over the management of Portarlington\u2019s Parks Hall from Bellarine Bayside Foreshore Committee.
\nThe City has worked closely with the committee and regular users of the hall to ensure the change of management caused minimal disruption to existing users, and has undertaken some improvements to the hall, including creating additional office space and a new reception area.
\nPNH coordinator Julie Hyslop said while she welcomed the construction of a new office and reception area for the house, she hoped Council would create a place for the library too.
\n\u201cThe library is an important community resource,\u201d Ms Hyslop said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s open to everyone, it\u2019s totally free and it\u2019s been put together solely over the last 10 years from quality donations, and we like to keep it current and relevant.
\n\u201cBetween 30-40 people come in to use it every week.\u201d
\nMs Anbeek has spent hundreds of volunteer hours during the past 10 years building the book and DVD library up, and also fully cataloguing them.
\n\u201cI love that people can come and borrow and they\u2019re friendly and ask, have you got this and have you got that, and because we have it on computer at least we can look it up,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cWhen I started here there was nothing organised and no one knew what we had and where they were.
\n\u201cIt would be sad for the community to see it go.
\n\u201cBut we also don\u2019t want to be too negative\u2026 the library will stay here until at least the end of the year.
\n\u201cWe move in September, but the library will stay here and we hope to open several mornings a week.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s an interim solution but we hope the library can also move to the community hub at some stage.\u201d
\nThe City\u2019s Director of Community Life Robyn Stevens said improvements to the hall, including creating a new office space for Portarlington Neighbourhood House, were nearly complete.
\n\u201cAs a tenant, the Neighbourhood House will be relocating most of their programs to the hall,\u201d Ms Stevens said.
\n\u201cUnfortunately, the library will not be relocated to Parks Hall.
\n\u201cThe City is continuing to explore other accommodation opportunities for the library with the Neighbourhood House.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE future of a community library located at Portarlington Neighbourhood House remains in limbo as the house gets ready to relocate to Parks Hall. The Portarlington Neighbourhood House will become a new tenant at the hall in September, relocating the majority of its programs to the important community facility. But Hetty Anbeek, who has operated […]<\/p>\n