Welcome back! The library is now open, and the books are pouring back in. I was happy when the wall surrounding the stacks was taken apart and the wonderful Bury team came in to re-install the shelves that were taken out, but I almost cried when the books started coming back in.

You will find a few things in slightly different places: We respaced the entire collection and moved a few things around. This means that the empty row of shelves that people kept asking about is no longer empty — after just two years our collection has grown that much! We shifted the videos, music CDs and audiobooks to give us a bit more room where we needed it, and we also did an inventory to try and find some of the long lost misshelved items that always seem to plague libraries (and we did!).

You will notice a few temporary changes as well. The Reference Collection, along with its shelving, is still in storage, and the Teen Lounge has been temporarily relocated to what is normally the holds pickup and brochure rack area. The aim is to make extra room for the Paralympic events that will take place in the evenings between March 12 and 21, and things will go back to normal after that. Holds to be picked up are located on carts near my office. We also still have the beautiful window graphics, now slightly changed to depict Paralympic athletes, and they will stay until late March.

I would like to ask our patrons one favour: Please be gentle with us. Most of the library staff have been working very hard and for more than their usual number of hours to get the library in shape for the reopening. During the Olympics we were not on holiday, I assure you, and we worked long and hard for the municipality and/or VANOC. I can’t speak for everyone, but I had a fantastic, exhilarating, stressful, exhausting, thrilling and draining month of February 2010. I admit that seeing “my” library used in such a different way was novel and fun, but also more difficult than I thought it would be. I missed the library, and anyone walking in to the building for the first time would not have guessed its usual function. I am extraordinarily glad to have it, and all our patrons, back.

Please remember that we will be closing early on several days during the Paralympics – at 4 or 6 p.m. most days. Check our website or call us at (604) 935-8433 for exact times.

Lauren Stara is director of the Whistler Public Library.