Dorval Library

A surprisingly great local suburban library, twinned with a community art galerie and cultural center. It’s full of bright lake light, surrounded by gardens, fountains, trees with name plates celebrating dedicated volunteers and their mums. There are quiet rooms, free internet, and comfy well lit reading chairs. And the collection is surprisingly up to date, I went today looking for a bunch of books off the NY Times Best books of 2011 list and they had them all, fiction and non. Or I should say, the system had them all listed as available. Finding them on the shelf was a different matter as someone seems to play a little fast and loose with the alphabet over there, but frankly everyone who works there looks like a volunteer or their mum just doing their best to keep cool stuff on the shelves and interesting performances coming in for the kids to maybe one day earn a tree with a name plate, so I kind of like the hint of lovingly befuddled. The music section is surprisingly diverse too, I walked out with a bunch of Joni Mitchell and M.I.A. today and nobody batted an eye.