Chatter from Chittering

August 30, 2019

Annie Hudson is the Library Officer for the Bindoon library in the Shire of Chittering in Australia. She reached out to us at VIRL before coming to visit family in Ladysmith, interested in setting up a sister library exchange. She is full of energy, love for her small, remote library and hilarious stories. We can’t edit because Annie’s voice is perfect. Sincerely wish there was a way to add her lyrical accent in, it’s lovely!

Baby Kangaroo:

“Okie, so first things first – the library is part of the Shire so although I’m the only one who works in our library (besides volunteers who open for me on Saturdays) I don’t work alone as there are Shire staff next door. One of the ladies who work for the Shire is a Wildlife Carer and the little guy’s mum had been hit by a car and killed. He was rescued as a Pinky, which means he was small enough to not have any fur. He requires 2 hourly feeds and so we would take turns feeding and cuddling him. He became an honorary library officer but he wasn’t very good at it!”

Wombat the Giant Bunny:

I have longed for a library animal since I first started working here and yes, we have the odd joey and we’ve hatched chicks, but I would love to have a permanent companion for my members. A local animal rescue farm had a Flemish Giant called Wombat who they needed to rehome and we were told that he was friendly and cuddly and so I thought perhaps we could have a library bunny. Wombat was dropped off for a trial run one day and he was a menace from the minute he arrived. Yes, he was cuddly, but he couldn’t sit on my lap the entire day so he hopped around my office for a bit, and then decided to nibble on a box that held some donated books. Then he thought the skirting boards were tasty, and finally he wanted the computer cords for dessert. We fashioned him a little pen to keep him out of mischief but he kept escaping, and he even bit me twice when I tried to catch him! By the end of the day I was running around, tearing my hair out, trying to keep this bunny from destroying the entire building and what was supposed to be a nice, relaxing library bunny turned out to be related to the bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

 

Gingin Police:

There’s the time we had an officer from the Gingin Police come in for Rhyme Time and half the kids were too scared to have their photo taken with her and when we did get the photo it turned into one of the Bad Santa pics, with most of the kids crying or looking terrified that they were going to be arrested!

The most popular genres here at the library are crime fiction and Australian rural romance.

Some of the most popular Australian authors with our members are Rachel Johns, Fleur McDonald, Liz Byrski, and Matthew Reilly (and there are many more, especially female writers which I think is awesome!).”

 

Thanks so much, Annie for sharing your stories and enthusiasm for library life! We look forward to continuing our friendship. If you have any questions for her, you can submit them here.