A community room at the Puslinch branch of the Wellington County Library will be named in memory of former warden Brad Whitcombe.
Wellington County council endorsed the heritage information and seniors committee decision to name a room for Whitecombe, a former Puslinch Mayor and staunch library advocate who died in November 2014.
In March, the committee deferred a request from Puslinch resident Sandra Solomon and Whitcombe’s spouse Lise Burcher to rename the Puslinch library the “Bradford Whitcombe Library” until a county-owned-asset naming policy has been recommended by the administration, finance and personnel committee and approved by county council.
Council subsequently approved an AF & P committee recommendation that requests to name or rename a county-owned asset be considered on an ad hoc basis by the appropriate standing committee/board for recommendation to County council, which left the renaming the library under the information, heritage and seniors committee’s mandate.
Committee chair Rob Black said the recommendation to rename a community room at the Puslinch Library Branch the “Bradford Whitcombe Room” was the result of further discussion at the June 10 committee meeting.
New technology
With use of a special provincial grant aimed at extending access to new technology through public libraries, Wellington County has purchased 26 Launchpad tablets for children.
The equipment offers children educational games. The tablets have just been deployed to all the libraries in the county system.
A report to the heritage information and seniors committee states the Launchpads are receiving considerable interest from the public. The Launchpads are available for a seven day loan period.
County libraries will also be introducing of computer-related Makerkits.
“The use of these technology loaded kits has seized the interest of public libraries and their customers across North America in the past year. The kits provide access to relatively cheap technology that patrons can borrow and experiment with at home,” states a report from chief librarian Murray McCabe.
Initially, four kits will be shared by the 14 branch libraries with library users able to place holds on the kits as they would any library materials.
