The library comes with a 30+ year history. It was started in the 1980s when the Wentworth Community School group decided to collect and catalogue the various books in Wentworth Elementary Consolidated School and place them in a central location -- which happened to be a storeroom. From there, students, teachers and community members could access the books and borrow them. Students learned the process of finding and borrowing books and would feel at home in any public library. This ‘library’ operated from the storeroom for approximately 20 years, serving a generation of young students. Needless to say, its book collection grew until the storeroom was packed.
In the year 2000, there were opportunities for ‘millennium’ grants from our governments for various projects to celebrate the new century. The school and community applied for a grant to move the library into an empty classroom and to equip it with proper shelving. They were the fortunate recipients of a grant that allowed them to do so.
At about the same time, the community was encouraged by Cumberland Regional Development Authority to place a Community Access site in the community. Arrangements were made to place the site in the new library at Wentworth Elementary. The Library/C@Psite worked very well, providing books and computers for student use, and supplying the small community with a place for borrowing books, learning computer skills, connecting to the internet and accessing services such as photocopying and faxing.
Times change and access to schools by community members became a questionable thing. In 2011, part of the library and the C@Psite was moved to a new location in the Wentworth Recreation Centre where it would be available to the general public. It remained there until the closure of Wentworth Elementary in 2015 and the purchase of the school building by the community. The library/C@Psite is now re-situated in its ‘millennium’ site and open for business.
Services
Wentworth community Library & C@Psite has an exceptional collection of children’s books both fiction and non-fiction, adult reading and computer access including WI-FI. Photocopy and fax service is available. The site is managed three afternoons a week by a trio of high school students who are ready to help people with their computer questions.
To offer service, support & enhancement to its members. The goal is to provide affordable public access & foster growth in the use of technology for the benefit of the community.
