LIANZA

Kia ora koutou
Earthquake recovery and getting back to some semblance of normality (or the “new normal”) continues to be our focus here in Christchurch, so I thought it would be good to share some of the progress we have been making at Christchurch City Libraries to get services up and running again. We have made progress over the last 7 weeks with the following libraries now open Akaroa, Bishopdale, Diamond Harbour, Hornby, Little River, New Brighton, Parklands, Redwood, South, including South Learning Centre, Spreydon and most recently Lyttleton. The Mobile Library is also back on the road with some additional targeted stops as well as regular routes reinstated where feasible, where roads are in good condition. 

Unfortunately Central Library, Sumner and Linwood are likely to remain closed for some time but we hope to have Shirley and Halswell Libraries open again in the next few weeks. Fendalton, Upper Riccarton and Papanui library are currently accommodating essential council services while the Civic Offices are being repaired, but again will be reopened to the public within the next 2-3 months.

The Library website has played a vital role in connecting customers to our products, programmes and services since the February earthquake. We had very little downtime with the website and it provided invaluable information about the availability of services as well as reinforcing key civil defence related messages. The Digital Library Web Team has been busy in the social media space with their existing blogs (http://cclblog.wordpress.com/ and http://christchurchkids.wordpress.com/, Flickr and through the twitter channel @ChristchurchLib.The team have also established a Facebook page at http://facebook.com/christchurchcitylibraries which has already proven very popular. The page was created on 14 March, and by the 5 April has already had 132,383 post views. With much of our physical library collection currently inaccessible, the library is adding new content to the online resource collection (branded as The Source).  We are also involving more library staff in writing and reviewing content for the library website to keep it fresh and up to date,

The Pre-School Outreach Team have not been idle on the programming front either. From the 22nd February to the end of March they delivered 11 Storytime sessions at 3 different emergency welfare centres to a total of just over 100 children and 20 adults. They visited 17 Recovery Assistance Centres (multi-agency centres set up especially to support the hardest hit suburbs) and delivered 8 extra Storytimes sessions to 138 children at Bishopdale and South libraries.
 
As you would expect, we are also starting to evaluate the services we offer and think about what we can do differently now to support Christchurch residents through the recovery phase. We also need to assess how our business is changing and identify new opportunities and collaborative possibilities. Our staff have been truly amazing throughout, and some have endured significant personal hardship such as badly damaged or destroyed homes. This truly is a time for us to demonstrate resilience, flexibility, creativity and above all, kindness, support for and trust in each other.

Unfortunately, I am not able to provide an update on the other Christchurch libraries who are facing similar or greater challenges. Maybe some of my local colleagues will add a comment to this post or add their own story to the LIANZA website. I know the Aoraki regional committee are planning a get together of local libraries to share stories and identify help needed. I am very much looking forward to getting together with Aoraki colleagues soon.

Carolyn

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