Wyndham City Libraries

Wyndham City Libraries provide a range of public library services at five branches in the Melbourne outer metropolitan City of Wyndham local government area. Its five branch libraries are located at the Werribee Plaza shopping centre, in the Werribee city centre, at Point Cook Town Centre, and in Wyndham Vale and Tarneit.

Branches

Plaza Library

The Plaza Library (formerly called the Heaths Road Library) is the largest library in the service and acts as the main branch library. Management of Wyndham City Libraries is coordinated at the Plaza branch. Originally, the central branch of the Wyndham (then Werribee) Library Service was located at the Civic Centre on Princes Highway, Werribee. The library opened at the Werribee Plaza Shopping Centre in 1993, was renovated in stages in the mid-2000s, and was updated in late 2010 with the integration of RFID technology.

In January 2015, the Plaza Library moved to a new location in the redeveloped Werribee Plaza Shopping Centre.[1][2][3]

Point Cook Library

The Point Cook Library opened in September 2009 as part of the Point Cook Community Learning Centre (located within the Point Cook Town Centre). The library covers approximately 950m². The Point Cook branch was the first Wyndham branch library to use RFID technology in its stock management.

In its first two months of operation, the Point Cook Library had almost 45,000 unique visitors and recorded almost 78,000 loans.[4]

Werribee Library

The Werribee Library (previously called the CBD Library, as in Central Business District) opened in its current location, at the Wyndham Cultural Centre on Watton Street, in 2001. Previously it had operated from a smaller site on Barnes Place. The library underwent a major renovation in October 2010. A number of 'boutique'-style shelving areas were installed to promote browsing, to highlight general interest material and to improve both stock management and use.

Manor Lakes Library

The Manor Lakes Library is part of the Manor Lakes Community Learning Centre, and opened on 4 July 2011, originally named Wyndham Vale Library.[5] Its official opening on 10 November 2011 by then-local member and Prime Minister Julia Gillard was the only official opening of a public library by Gillard during her term as prime minister.

The design of the Manor Lakes Community Learning Centre echoes that of the Point Cook Community Learning Centre, and indicates a strategy that partners public libraries with allied local government services, including kindergartens and child health services. The Manor Lakes Library hosted a visit from Victorian and interstate library professionals in 2012 as a site of "best practice" for Australian library and local government community facilities.[6]

Julia Gillard Library Tarneit
Top-down aerial perspective of Tarneit Library. Taken in 2017

A library has been built in the Tarneit Community Learning Centre.[7] The library is named in honour of former Member of Parliament for Lalor and Prime Minister Julia Gillard.[8] The new library was funded by a mixture of state and local government funds, and the then-mayor Cr Heather Marcus indicated in August 2013 that Wyndham City intended for the library to serve the populations of Tarneit and Williams Landing.[9] The Tarneit Library was opened on 14 December 2015.[10]

See also

References
  1. Wyndham Leader - Huge Growth for Werribee Plaza (14 September 2010)
  2. Wyndham City - Libraries in Wyndham
  3. Wyndham City media release - Plaza Library Works Underway (7 May 2014)
  4. Media Release - Pt Cook Library
  5. Media Release - Wyndham Vale's New Kid on the Block
  6. Media Release - Wyndham's Library Services Shows Off Its Assets
  7. Wyndham Weekly - "Capital works cut backs to help bolster Wyndham's bottom line" (16 May 2012)
  8. Wyndham Weekly - "Tarneit library name to honour Julia Gillard", 30 September 2015 (Adem Saban)
  9. In its 2012–13 budget, Wyndham City allocated $338,000 toward the cost of planning the library. Media Release - Proposed Budget 2012-13 The total cost of the library is projected as $6.95 million. At one point, a further $1.05 million was promised from the Australian federal government's Regional Development Australia Fund in August 2013. This was to complement a $750,000 grant from the Victorian state government's Living Libraries program. Media Release - Tarneit Library Receives Federal Funds The Abbott government withdrew all federal funds from the project in February 2014, arguing that it was not bound to provide funding promised but not expended by the previous government from the Regional Development Australia Fund. Wyndham council 'stripped' of library Funding - Wyndham Weekly, 4 March 2014 (Laura Little)
  10. Wyndham City Libraries homepage
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