Library Gets Colour

Back in the day, when libraries were classified in the public mind in the same aesthetic headspace as prisons, sanitoriums, and hospitals, the public library in Charlottetown moved into the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

The result was an giant room painted off-beige, with walls occasionally broken up with modern art circa 1964. The effect was not, shall we say, enlivening.

On Monday I got a call from one of the librarians there, announcing the arrival of Peter Coyote’s autobiography on inter-library loan. I was bemused by a Monday call — the library is closed on Mondays — and the librarian explained that they were all working overtime to get ready for the Big Paint Job.

Yes, the Confederation Centre Public Library is getting painted!

And not only that, it’s getting new carpet (the existing carpet being of a vintage and condition usually reserved for “on the garage floor to prevent the oil drip from the car from staining the floor”).

I went in to pick up the book yesterday, and you could already see evidence of the work: the back walls are painted an off green. The librarian at the desk told me there’s a rather vibrant rust colour coming as well, and what she characterized as a “very vibrant colourful carpet.”

Life will never been the same. Welcome to the new century.

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