This week's big wet and the looming winter has me thinking about indoor entertainment.
For value for money, one of the best providers of this has to be your local library.
Hawke's Bay is well catered for when it comes to libraries and many people would agree there is nothing like a
good book when you are tucked up at home on a chilly winter day.
Even if you haven't the patience to read a book, these days libraries have extensive collections of DVDs available at a much cheaper rate than commercial rental outlets.
Over the long weekend, I watched recent release and film festival darling The Visitor and Michael Douglas' 1980s greed-is-good story, Wall Street.
Both came from the Hastings District Library, which has superb facilities in the central city, Flaxmere and Havelock North.
The book I'm currently reading, Robert Edric's The Kingdom of Ashes, comes from Napier City Library.
I visit Hastings and Napier's main libraries reasonably often and, while they are both good services, Hastings has the edge.
It somehow seems to be a bit more coherent, the service desk is excellent and there is always a healthy selection of recently returned books for those of us happy to make quick decisions based on popular reading.
I was making this point to someone just a day before I read in Hawke's Bay Today that Napier's main library will close from May 8 to May 16 for refurbishment.
The service desk area was last upgraded some 15 years ago, which explains why it looks like a poor cousin to the set-up in Hastings.
It's important to get the library layout and service delivery right.
You can have the best collection in the world but if customers find it difficult to access, some, perhaps many, will not make the effort.
These days, the public expect fast, efficient service in a clean, modern environment.
So congratulations to Napier Library for recognising the need and making the effort. I for one will be very interested in the result.
My apologies for the typographical errors in yesterday's editorial recounting my family's escape from flooding. It was written in extreme circumstances.
