Community Connections - August 2016

Community Connections is a column written by a Hiroshima City C.I.R., in which ways of making connections with people or local communities are introduced.

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What is a C.I.R. (Coordinator for International Relations)?

A Coordinator for International Relations, or C.I.R. for short, is a participant on the JET Programme who assists local government offices in international exchange at the local level.

Public Library Events

By KARLEE KEYSER

pdf [pdf,221KB,1page]

This is the last time I’ll be writing Community Connections, but I hope everyone will enjoy reading about insights from Benjamin S. from the November issue onward! For my last post, I would like to introduce public libraries as a place not only to visit for books, but also for events.

In early June at the International Exchange Lounge in Peace Memorial Park, I helped host a reading of a picture book in English. It was while researching ways to conduct this event that I stumbled upon the wonderful programming of different libraries in the area. Until then, I had foolishly thought libraries were mostly for studying or borrowing books! How can you find out about library events? Well, there’s a handy website for that!

To access information on libraries in Hiroshima City, check out this website: http://www.library.city.hiroshima.jp/. If you choose the English option at the top of the page, you can learn about library cards and hours, library locations and contact information, and about searching for library books. Scroll halfway down the Japanese homepage to find the following options:

Click onイベントto see a list of recent past events. To see future events, click on月間予定and choose the schedule of your preferred library. The majority of library events are targeted toward children and their guardians. There are also some really interesting ones for adults as well, such as below.

schedule

By looking up library information online like this, it is much easier to use web tools to search difficult kanji and to find those events that really interest you. As far as I can tell, the only downside to the library website I listed above is that it does not include information about the International Exchange Lounge. That means that to search the lounge’s wealth of books and magazines in foreign languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and more), you’ll need to do so at the following website: http://www.lib-finder.net/pcf/servlet/Index/. To learn about events at the lounge, such as study groups, club activities, and book readings, please call or visit. Happy reading and socializing!