I started in the “pink” era, the furniture was pink, shelves, desks and even some walls. We only had about 8 public pc’s, and of course, this was the pre –internet era. There was a community language collection, but as Lalor always had a large migrant population, we had the largest and most diverse collection in the Region, the biggest of which then were Greek and Italian. Now of course it includes expanded Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, Croatian and Serbian books, magazines, cds, videos and dvds.
We now have a bright newly renovated building which has greatly enhanced the library’s visibility, with an increased collection, up to 40 public pcs and active programs reaching out to our communities.
Most remarkable of all is the fact that, apart from an odd incident or two, the diverse ethnic groups who use our collections blend harmoniously into our library community, accepting cultural differences that traditionally have created enormous problems in their respective homelands.
It’s a little unfortunate that recollections of Lalor are dominated by thoughts of vandalism, graffiti and theft, but I guess over the last 10 years, some good things have happened.
I think the Lalor library can be proud of its reputation as the cultural hub of the City of Whittlesea. Long may it continue!
Cecil – Staff member Lalor Library 2006
It was in the early days of Lalor when we did a pop up Library at The Stables Shopping Centre when it was first built.
Sarah Brown is watching me read to one of our young borrowers who would be around 40 now…. [One] story [is] the time we had some hassles with local youth when we were in the portable library in May Rd. I brought the Doberman to work a few nights (we worked till 9pm then). That saw them behave.
We also had a library cat who had kittens in the workroom around 1980.
Denise – retired staff member Yarra Plenty Regional Library November 2016
