This year the Thompson Nicola Regional District (TNRD) is celebrating it’s 50th Anniversary, as a part of the year long festivities, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, area residents were invited to attend an afternoon of celebration at the Barriere Library.
Guests included District of Barriere Mayor Virginia Smith, TNRD Area ‘O’ Director Bill Kershaw, TNRD Chief Librarian Judy Moore and TNRD staff person Andrea Leite.
All who attended seemed to have a good time visiting and enjoying cake and refreshments.
The library staff had set up an interesting display table that showed many items relating to the history of the Barriere Library. Several ‘memory albums’ drew particular attention from the party guests. The albums contained newspaper clippings and photographs from several years ago that stirred memories of so many things that had taken place in the library. The pictures told of events, and showed the people of Barriere and the area who had been connected to the library over the years.
Bill Kershaw also reminisced about when Barriere became part of the TNRD. “We had a huge water supply problem in our town,” said Kershaw, “The Barriere Improvement District was financially unable to undertake the costly reconstructions necessary to do the work. By becoming incorporated into the TNRD they were then eligible for a grant to finance the project. Since then Barriere and outlying areas have benefited from being a part of the TNRD and our library is one of the services that is a part of it.”
The Barriere Library has a collection size of 14,179 items, and in 2016 lent out 27,886 items, there are also two computers available for public use, wireless access, and photocopying service.
A door prize of a water conservation kit was drawn with the winner being Sheena White.
The Thompson Nicola Regional District provides library service to a population of 134,000 within a 45,000 square kilometer area of the Central Interior of B.C. It has 13 branch locations and a Bookmobile.