St Brigid’s Catholic Primary School and Casimir Catholic College Marrickville students will be able to hit the books on all sides after they helped to officially open the new Marrickville Library and Pavillion opposite their schools on Saturday.
The new council facility will supplement their own impressive library spaces, with 20,000 new books and robotics added to the public library’s collection.
When the St Brigid’s school library was damaged by fire in early 2016, Marrickville Library and History gave a bulk-loan of 400 books to students. With this generosity in mind, the school’s student leaders in Years 3 to 6 happily cut the ribbon at the library opening with Inner West Council Mayor Darcy Byrne and Councillor Vic Macri.
The students love the library and all it offers.
Residents nearby have also benefited from the handiwork of students who helped to create and paint a ‘street library’ – a large, shelved box that invites the community to swap or deposit books – for their use.
St Brigid’s Principal Antonella Mazzucco will tour the council library’s new spaces with staff next week to see how they might best use them to complement students learning. There are also plans to include a STEM space in the St Brigid’s library, making it a place for full inquiry-based learning.
“Our library is a pivotal space in our school,” Ms Mazzucco said. “The students love the library and all it offers. They were beside themselves when asked to help open the council library and were very happy to represent their school. We hope this is the beginning of a wonderful new partnership within the community.”