Michelle Loubon

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh says restora­tion of the old Pub­lic Li­brary at Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, will fos­ter a much need­ed ap­pre­ci­a­tion of T&T's his­to­ry among the younger gen­er­a­tion. He made this com­ment while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of A Tale From The Old Li­brary Vol 2: An His­tor­i­cal Record of the Pub­lic Li­brary, on Fri­day.

Gopeesingh said:?"We live in a time when li­braries and their his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance run the risk of be­ing lost in this age of tech­nol­o­gy. The fact that this project falls un­der the Na­tion­al Pa­tri­o­tism Month-and while we cel­e­brate our 50th an­niver­sary-makes it more worth­while and rel­e­vant." He added, "We will be ful­fill­ing that very glar­ing need to pre­serve the mem­o­ries and lega­cies of all our great pa­tri­ots, past and present, who of­fered to their na­tion their lead­er­ship, skills and achieve­ments at the high­est lev­els."

The book was pro­duced as part of Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion's con­tin­u­ing pro­gramme of ed­u­ca­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion of im­por­tant his­tor­i­cal her­itage sites of T&T for pos­ter­i­ty. Over the last 15 years, the group has formed al­liances with PIC (The Preser­va­tion In­sti­tute of the Caribbean), The Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da, Mas­ters of Ar­chi­tec­ture Pro­gram, The Caribbean School of Ar­chi­tec­ture in Kingston, Ja­maica, and the Preser­va­tion In­sti­tute in Nan­tuck­et to pro­duce re­ports and stud­ies on sev­er­al Trinidad and To­ba­go his­tor­i­cal sites.

Some of these re­ports in­clude a study of sug­ar mill sites in To­ba­go; the Great Hous­es of the Sa­van­nah or The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en; The Vic­to­ria Square Her­itage Site; Nor­folk Street, Bel­mont; The Old Fire Brigade Sta­tion; and the Red House.

Most re­cent­ly Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion has part­nered with ar­chi­tec­tur­al stu­dents from Car­leton Uni­ver­si­ty in Ot­tawa, Cana­da on a sim­i­lar ven­ture. Stu­dents from Car­leton Uni­ver­si­ty's Azrieli School of Ar­chi­tec­ture and Ur­ban­ism un­der the di­rec­tion of Prof Yvan Caz­abon, first vis­it­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2011. On that vis­it they doc­u­ment­ed two im­por­tant build­ings, the Fi­gari House, a typ­i­cal ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry house on Pic­cadil­ly Street, Laven­tille and the Boissiere House, com­mon­ly called the Gin­ger­bread House, at Queen's Park West. From these stud­ies a book was pro­duced ti­tled Tale of Two Hous­es. Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion pre­sent­ed copies of this book to Nalis, The UWI Li­brary, The Na­tion­al Trust and the UTT li­brary.

The stu­dents made a sec­ond vis­it this year dur­ing which they com­plet­ed a sur­vey of the old Pub­lic Li­brary on Wood­ford Square and pro­duced yet an­oth­er book, A Tale from The Old Li­brary. The ob­jec­tive of the book is to record ac­cu­rate­ly, through texts, draw­ings, dig­i­tal mod­els and pho­tographs, the cur­rent con­di­tion of the old Pub­lic Li­brary.