SMART upgrade caps a month of learning at Martinborough Library

One morning last month a customer came into Martinborough \Library to use our public computers. She wanted to submit her first assignment for an online class she was taking, but wasn’t quite sure how. After some trial and error, the woman, her friend, and a staff librarian figured out how to get the assignment sent on its way. Just another part of the lesson, the woman said. “I am eighty. My whakatauki is to always keep learning.”

May we all humbly follow her wisdom, calm, and curiosity—and patience in the face of new technology!

Indeed, ‘always keep learning’ has been our whakatauki during a busy month of change across the Wairarapa Library Service. In October the WLS completed a long-planned move to join the SMART Network, linking us to libraries in Masterton, the Hutt Valley, the Kapiti Coast, and more. We also debuted a series of adult online writing classes, and took our October holiday kids’ programming online with fun how-to videos on brick building and telling stories.

Ten times the books: The SMART Network is a huge opportunity to keep learning. While our own four branches contain about 64,000 titles, now WLS patrons can now request more than 600,000 titles free of charge through our new, SMART-linked online catalogue.

How does this work? Come in today and we’ll upgrade you to a new SMART library card. Then visit our new website at wls.org.nz, click ‘Browse the Catalogue’ you’re off. See a book you like? Log in with your new card number and make a request—if we don’t have it, a friendly librarian in Paraparaumu or Eastbourne or Porirua or any one of nearly two dozen area libraires will ship their copy over.

Let our online classes & clubs meet you at home: Delayed by the recent lockdown How to Write a Memory finally went off without a hitch this month through the magic of Zoom. Writers of all experience levels joined from their own writing desks to practice craft techniques for shaping their own lives on the page. More writing classes are coming soon—if you’d be interested, write dan@wls.org.nz. 

Meanwhile, the Evening Book Club debuted on 3 November as readers Zoomed in from homes across the Wairarapa for a spirited discussion of the new Sally Rooney novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You. We’ll meet every first Wednesday going forward to discuss one book per month. Next up…

Evening Book Club reads Doireann Ni Ghriofa’s A Ghost in the Throat for Wednesday 1 December, 7-8 p.m.: This gorgeous, unclassifiable memoir was Ireland’s favorite pandemic read. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids her own tragedy—and becomes obsessed with the poem and its author. ‘A Ghost in the Throat is astounding and utterly fresh.’ – The Irish Independent. 

Sign up at https://bit.ly/3lFwQ9d to get the Zoom link and we’ll reserve a copy just for you. Come join us—and always keep learning!