Your first visit to a library...

Do you remember the first time you were ever taken to a library? Where was it? How old were you? What year was it? Who took you?

For me it was probably around 1973, aged about 4, to a mobile bus library in Mount Eliza, which was barely suburban Melbourne back then. My mother took me. Í thought it was amazing. A bus... full of books. And you could borrow one. A small boys dream (probably more the bus than the books). What's your 'first library' memory?

The first time for me was around age 4 (1978) when my aunt was babysitting me, but had to study. She took me to the baillieau library in melbourne, and then later to the SLV, and I was under strict instruction Not To Touch! The first time I *was* allowed to touch the books was at the ringwood library, where I could borrow anything I liked.

But we always had books at home, and I was blessed to have both a book exchange and an op-shop down at the shops where old paperbacks and comics could be had for a bob or two, so I never really became a library user until my 30s.

My first visit to a library was in about 1946 aged 10, it was a in a shop in a shopping center privately owned I would say, my older sister took me.

The shop was in Burwood, an outer western suburb (then) of Sydney.

Wow that has taken me down memory lane!!

Coburg Library.
1955/6.
I believe it was one of the first specifically built "Childrens Libraries" in Melbourne.
The year before that, 'Dad' took me to to the Adult's Library.

It was a totally Sussch library :-)

I also remember a Pay for borrow library on a corner shop. I'm not sure but perhaps Mum paid her 6 pence for a borrow of some sort of "romance"? Probably like #3 above.

Guido.

I grew up in Canada so the first time I remember being in a library, I was about 6 in my school library in Ottawa. I remember walking around looking at all the books and being in heaven. I loved to read and I couldn't wait to dive into all of those books.

I think I was in 3rd or 4th grade when our teacher walked us two blocks to visit the newly built Mona Vale Library, circa 1973. I chose a couple of sci-fi looking books to borrow, which turned out to be lousy - a real-life "don't judge a book by its cover" lesson. Next visit I discovered the Three Investigators series, which became favourites of mine.

Brisbane City Council library system, Annerley branch, mid to late 50s. I would have been about 7 or 8 at the time. The Annerley library is still there. The City Council library system used to keep separate records for each branch, and by the time I left Brisbane in 1970 I was subscribed to, and using, 3 of them--Annerley, the central one in Ann Street (in the School of Arts building, which is still there, but the library moved into City Hall) and the South Brisbane branch, which was where the Griffith Centre for the Creative Arts is now. That building unfortunately is gone.

It would have been 1975 (I was 5) but I am not sure if it was the Knox City one. Certainly I remember going to Knox City every Saturday morning from when I was about 8. I now am so grateful that my parents took me to the library every week. I remember loving those mornings. And they never hurried us. We could spend a few hours in there, if that is how long we wanted.

I don’t think my parents ever took me to a library ever. My mum was always more into buying books than borrowing them. I remember going to the bookshop with her many times.

So I guess the first time I went to the library was when the bookmobile visited the school. The school had a selection of books in the school hall but no real library.

During the summer holidays I think the highlight of fortnight was going down to the end of our street and visiting the bookmobile when it came.

I don't remember which was the first but when I was a kid in the 70's mum used to take us to both the Ivanhoe and Rosanna libraries.