Pete Lewis shared this great memory on this photo of the current Chiel Librarian, Tim Nicholls Harrison, reading on the Andrew Armitage memorial bench.

I remember Mr Armitage well. He taught me a great life lesson.

Somewhere around 1977 or 1978 as a 12-13 year old, I'd had some overdue Danny Dunn series books (Danny Dunn Time Traveler was one of the 3 or 4). Thinking I could solve the problem by dumping them over the 8th Street bridge...into the Sydenham River they went. Not being old enough to comprehend that they had records of these things, my crime was quickly found out and a meeting with my mom and Mr Armitage ensued.

The easy out would be my mom covering the cost of the books, but Mr Armitage had a different path forward...I had to work off the cost of the books. A set number of hours was established and a bunch of after schools and Saturdays I went into the library and collected books from the book return, shelved books, went through shelves to make sure that all of the books were in order by Dewey Decimal number and more.

I loved it...As a kid I got to know the 700 section really well.  As I got older and went to university, it was helpful to know my way around a library and my undergrad had me spend lots of time in the 300 section.

That lesson from Mr Armitage came 40+ years ago but I won't ever forget. It taught me some important life lessons beyond just the value of a good book!