Atwater Library and Computer Centre

On November 21, 2018 we celebrated the 190th anniversary of our organization’s founding with a reception in our main lobby. President John Aylen spoke to the gathering about our remarkable longevity. “When you turn 190, you can’t expect many of your contemporaries to come to your birthday party. But you hope that some of your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren do. And that is who we are. Figuratively, we are their descendants and the keepers of the great legacy they created.” Please click here for his full text. Find out more about our history here.

The photos below show John Aylen speaking and Lynn Verge, Executive Director, and Susan McGuire, historian and former Executive Director, cutting the birthday cake.

Wanda Potrykus, a participant in our seniors-led Living History Collection project, has written a series of articles for WestmountMag.ca online: “Birth of a local living history collection” — part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

On August 9, 2017 Status of Women Canada Minister Maryam Monsef made a major announcement in our building that included funding for our three-year project addressing the problem of rape culture on college campuses. Click here for the full text.

The photo below shows our project co-cordinators Dr. Shanly Dixon and Community Development Librarian Eric Craven with the Minister.

The Digital Literacy Project is an initiative of the Atwater Library and Computer Centre through which we foster positive digital citizenship and engage people in creative new media production. Since 2007 we have worked with over 50 partner organizations and schools and through them, more than 3,100 individuals of all ages and stages.

This fall we are partnering with Concordia University’s Department of Theatre for the fifth year in a row  – with students in a Theatre course called The Artist in Residence  – as well as Concordia graduate students with “The Right to the City: Cross-Disciplinary Pedagogy and the Politics of Montreal’s South-West.” We will be connecting the students to our community partners and helping them create an online digital reflection of their experiences through social media, video and photography.

On Saturday, February 27, 2016 from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am, for Nuit blanche, we welcomed over 200 people to the Library for exciting new-media showcase events, the products of two of our community-based projects – one led by seniors and the other by youth. Eric Craven, our Digital Literacy Project Coordinator, was thrilled with the results and commented, “The night was a great success – wonderful collaborative project that was much more than the sum of its parts!”

Moving Pictures:
Moving Histories Out of the Attic and Into the Public
Attendees immersed themselves in a sound and video installation that began with images projected through the front windows of our heritage building. Inside, our reading room was transformed by a multi-media exhibition created by seniors who digitized and re-edited home movies from the 40s to the 70s, and made their own music and sound using digital tools. An extension of our Digital Literacy Project with support from New Horizons for Seniors and Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT).

Seeing Red:
Young People’s Stories for the Eyes, From the Heart
Children and adults were dazzled by the work of 21 young Montrealers, aged 7 to 12, who created stories and transformed them into digital art that comes from their hearts. Part of the Atwater Writers Exhibition (AWE) with support from the Community Cultural Action Fund (CCAF) of Canadian Heritage.