The Port Augusta Public Library was closed the first time I visited. What a bummer! There was a COVID case in the library the previous week so it was shut down! Luckily, I had another chance for a second visit, on our way back home. Although, that wasn’t a very long visit either because it was near closing time.

Date of visit: 28 August/4 September 2021

Features: There were a few things I thought were unique to this library.

Picture Books

It was interesting to see that children’s picture books were organised under age groups rather than the authors’ names. You know that makes sense because if I had children and was looking for age-appropriate books, this would make my life easier to choose books for my children. I wonder why other libraries aren’t doing this?

Playaway Resources

I was intrigued about these resources as I have not seen them in the libraries I’ve visited or even in the library that I work in. So a pre-recorded book is already in this device, so all a client had to do was borrow the set and listen to it. The audiobooks that I am familiar with are recorded on compact discs and we (the library I work for) assume that clients have CD players to play these resources.

Free Books

I love this display because clients and visitors could take home or away books that the library had discarded. I thought it was a great idea, rather than the library throwing them away. We took away a few books for our road trip and they were in pretty good nic too so I wonder why they were giving them away rather than charging people for them.

Auto-renewal of Loans

At the time of the visit, the South Australia library network was promoting the launch of their auto-renewal of loans. If you had an item out, providing that the item didn’t have a hold or reserve on it the system automatically renewed it for you. Brilliant huh?

Children’s Area Display

I like the library’s children’s area display when I visited. It looked like a fantasy theme where there was a paper mache and/or foil dragon hanging on the ceiling. There was also a Hogwarts castle made out of cardboard.

Overall impression: As this was a whirlwind visit (mainly used the computer) I only had a quick glimpse of the library and hardly chatted with the library staff. Overall, it was quite a nice little library although empty at the time of the visit.