ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608090096
SECTION: DISCOVER ROANOKE VALLEY PAGE: 14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN ADAMS STAFF WRITER
Inside a small, plain brick building on Grandin Avenue work four pleasant people who know everything. Or so it seems. They are the Raleigh Court librarians and, like the gurgling fountain inside their doors, these folks overflow with information.
``If we can't find what they need, we'll tell them where they can find it,'' says six-year library assistant Kathy Carter. If an item is difficult to locate, they can run an interlibrary, statewide or even regional search.
Library page Joan Kastner, under her calm exterior, carries the intrepid heart of a detective. ``The best part is watching someone find what they need, and steering them in the right direction,'' she says. ``The search is exciting. You may go from A to B, but along the way you'll say, `Look at this!'''
Acting director and 25-year library employee Gail Krieg says, ``It's fun to look up reference questions for people,'' adding that she never knows where her curiosity will lead her.
For 30 years the little library, the busiest of all city branches, has been a beloved part of the lives of neighborhood children and adults alike. Says Carter, ``Whether I'm helping a toddler with a picture book or an older person with a mystery, I feel I should treat them equally, with the same respect.''
The library has a good number of regular patrons, some who visit daily. ``I feel like I'm welcome there,'' says retiree Zelda Stanley, a 20-year patron who reads three or four books a week. ``They go out of their way to help me and they do it so graciously.''
Library assistant Diane Morris, who also works in technical services downtown, has been with the library for 23 years. She tells about a man who brought his young daughter to the downtown library every Monday night. They would each choose a stack of books and take them home. Now the daughter is going to college. ``It's so much fun to watch them grow up,'' she says.
Morris, a Roanoke native who grew up in a house on Grandin Avenue (and whose parents still live down the street), always read to her own two children. She says that when parents come in asking for a certain video for their child, she suggests they read the book to them too.
Carter, a founding member of the Blue Ridge Storytelling Association, emphasizes the importance of all kinds of stories. Her mother and father entertained the children with stories as they grew up in Bedford County. ``Especially during thunderstorms, my mother would make up wonderful stories to keep our minds off the weather,'' she says. Carter passed on the tradition, and now her 14-year-old daughter is an avid reader and storyteller as well.
When Roanoke-born Krieg was a child, she borrowed books from the Book Station, an old firehouse on Williamson Road. She has had a library card for as long as she can remember. After her own daughter was born,
``I was always bringing stacks of books home to her,'' she says, and now her daughter is grown up and is a librarian herself in South Carolina.
Whatever you need to know, the enthusiastic Raleigh Court librarians can help you.
Kastner laughs and says,``When I run into people I always say, `Come on down! We'll fix you up with a great book!'''
And they can do more than that. Krieg says, ``One lady who writes poetry sometimes calls with questions about spelling and grammar. She'll read a line and ask if it's grammatically correct.'' She smiles. ``So I guess you could say we help people write poetry, too.''
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY STAFF The librarians at Raleigh Courtby CNBLibrary branch: (from left) Diane Morris, Gail Krieg, Kathy Carter
and Joan Kastner.