Last week we were on the American side of the Virgin Islands; this week we'll take a visit to the British side and the island of Tortola. The first thing I saw after disembarking the ship was their bookmobile, which I later found out after chatting with the library director that it was purchased from a library system in Ohio. The library itself is found above a supermarket in downtown Road Town. Thumbing through the titles in the reference section, one really begins to realize how lucky we are in the States where most library systems have a half-decent budget. New books were virtually nonexistant and the books that were on the shelves would have been weeded eons ago at most other libraries.

Library's website >>> http://www.bvilibrary.gov.vg

Take a virtual tour here >>> http://www.bvilibrary.gov.vg/toursmain.php

All-American Library!

OK, maybe not 100% American, although this library is located in a U.S. territory. Found in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the town of Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas, it is easy to forget you're in a place where people carry American passports and pay using the dollar. For one thing, there actually is a place on U.S. soil where people drive on the left side of the road! And glancing at the names of streets and buildings, you'd swear you were somewhere in Denmark...the library itself is located on a street named "Dronningens Gade"! The U.S. purchased the islands from Denmark back in 1917 and it's nice to see they actually left some things unchanged.

The library is named after perhaps the most famous of all Caribbean librarians, Enid M. Baa. For a bio on her, click here >>> http://www.fostpl.org/Baa.html

For the current library website, click here >>> http://www.virginislandspace.org/Division%20of%20Libraries/dlamhome.htm