The magic of the old Queanbeyan City Library
Chapter One: Thursday Nights with Dad
Thursday night with Dad always meant a trip to the Queanbeyan Library or Jewels Food Barn, or both. We’d pile into the Kingswood, Dad just home from his public service job at the ATO.
He’d change from his grey polyester suit into jeans and a flanny, and we’d head down to Crawford Street to the Queanbeyan Library, then located at the Queanbeyan City Council Chambers, where the new QPRC building now stands.
Entering through the glass sliding doors, polished linoleum and thick ferns would greet you.
It was almost silent, except for the squeak of Dad’s KT26s on the floor and the comforting smell of a thousand pages turned. Dad would head off to the right to the “adult books” section – which always seemed mysterious, like the curtained-off area at the back of a video store – while my brother Kenrick and I would head further down to the children’s library on the left.
We’d spend forever perusing the shelves. With no computer system to search titles, you were at the mercy of the hovering librarians or your own keen eyes, hoping to spot the book every kid at school had just got through Lucky Book Club and that you were dying to read.
Kenrick would look for the dark, mysterious covers – Tomorrow, When the War Began and Paul Jennings – while I was searching for the lavender and peach The Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley High books. They even had a magazine section with Dolly, which, for a pre-teen, was mandatory reading.
Dad would also pick out a collection of large-print books for his grandmother, Annie. (Kids: they’re the books that look like you’ve turned the text size on your iPhone up as big as it will go – long before Audible, Kindles or e-books existed.)
The toy library was off the cards. With its strict return rules, and our family’s track record at the video store, it was an immediate no from Dad Wayne, who was busy picking out his latest harrowing biography to read on his lunch break between running laps around Lake Burley Griffin and eating his banana sandwich.
Chapter Two: Book Week Magic
No memory for a Queanbeyan kid in the ’80s hits harder than Book Week visits with your school. I distinctly remember one year the room being covered floor to ceiling in tin foil. It was an immersive, space-themed experience, and for a kid who grew up with wood-panelled walls and brown shag carpet, it was pure awe.
Every year the Junior Library would reinvent itself, each year somehow better than the last. Local schools would contribute artwork that became part of the displays. One year I remember making a witch on a broomstick that hung from the ceiling with hundreds of others.
Looking back now, most of it was probably crepe paper draped from hula hoops, children’s paintings suspended on fishing line and coloured cellophane over the windows. But through the eyes of an eight-year-old, it wasn’t craft supplies – it was a whole other world. You didn’t just visit the library during Book Week; you stepped inside the story.
The lighting, costumes and dramatics were all provided by the staff, and none was more committed than librarian Lynette Sebbens. She was the Queanbeyan Library in the ’80s. She was mysterious, slightly scary, and yet all-knowing. Everything my now peri-menopausal self aspires to be.
Chapter Three: The Teen Reading Years
Before Sarah J. Maas, there was Virginia Andrews. A true masterclass in smut, craftily woven into twisted stories of rags to riches, always featuring an evil mother and a hint (or full-blown dose) of incest.
She ushered me into my black-covered ’90s book era, alongside cult classics by Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
Do you know that I once lost a Dean Koontz book and didn’t return it for so long that I was effectively blacklisted? My broken bookworm heart was recently vindicated when I learned that late fees no longer exist at what is now the QPRC Library!
And I think that very book still exists on my garage bookshelf decades later …
Whoops.
Chapter Four: Finding the Magic Again
No hate for the Rutledge Street library. I took my kids there many times, was always made to feel welcome, and even enjoyed a coffee from the cart they had set up inside.
But something about it never had the magic of the Queanbeyan City Library on Crawford Street.
Perhaps it was because I was no longer the wide-eyed child.
The new library in the QPRC building, set among the treetops of Crawford Street, somehow brings back some of that original magic I’ve longed for. It has a The Faraway Tree vibe that really must be experienced in autumn, when all the leaves turn orange.
The Queanbeyan Library is bringing back late-night Thursdays this week with its Library Open Day event, with Bungendore and Braidwood Libraries also hosting celebrations.
They’re celebrating Christmas in July with festive workshops, holiday fun and extended opening hours at Queanbeyan Library until 8pm.
Highlights include Dungeons & Dragons, clay gnomes and even some Christmas-themed trivia.
Bookings are essential for select events! Find out more here: https://bit.ly/44430SD
Maybe the library looks different these days, and maybe we’ve traded library cards for apps and paperbacks for phones. But if you wander through those doors this week, there’s every chance you’ll find a little bit of that old Crawford Street magic waiting on the shelves.
And if you’re lucky … you might even catch the comforting smell of a thousand pages turned.
About the Author: Holly Winchester
Part Jennifer Coolidge, part Jennifer Garner (gaudy and geeky), Holly loves local stories, Dolly Parton, NRL and anything from the ‘90s. A young grandmother with strong Golden Girls energy, she’s usually fuelled by a Macca’s chai latte and firmly believes the best stories are found in the Kmart carpark.
