The Hub brings together lots of services under one roof: a new library for the area, access to Council services and the Police Safer Neighbourhood Team, a cafe area, community meetings rooms and a day care centre.

Come along and join us from 10am, meet the team, have a coffee, see round the library – and listen to local band Bwani Junction doing a gig for us in the morning!

We’ve got loads of other activities and events planned for the coming days and weeks – keep up to date with our facebook page, and do pop in and see us on Tuesday!

Anne Frank’s Diary

As those years went by slowly

The days were not mine to hold

Somewhere else

Time stood still

In my silent mind

I was not that old

Closed from the outside beyond

And from the inside within me

Somewhere unfolding thoughts lay drifting

Where my mind wanders from this place

To somewhere I know

My life hung over like shadows of the moon in a dark night

I felt very much on the outside looking in

I was saved by you on that special day

You can imagine how I was afraid

I held you tight at night

Near to my heart

I kept you safe

In my little empty space

For the future one day

I began to write

A flicker of hope and light

It was too much to bear

I wished I could escape from

What I know

And open the safe door

And walk home into the light

Without any fear

Not venturing far from this room

Nowhere to hide and run

Not even shedding one tear

If only things were different

Back in those painful

Unforgiving years

By Katie Turney

We are in the process of cataloguing this donated material and, where possible, we will be digitising some of it in order to share the collection directly with a wider audience.

The collections includes  original vinyl recordings of Edinburgh Jazz musicians (Sandy Brown, Al Fairweather, Archie Semple and Alex Welsh amongst others) books, cassettes of live sessions, posters, letters and other memorabilia.

There may be other jazz enthusiasts out there who have material which would augment this collection. Do you, or does someone you know, have material relevant to the Edinburgh Jazz scene, which you’d be happy to donate? We’re looking for LPs, CDs, EPs or cassettes. Photographs, DVDs and other memorabilia would also be welcome.

For more information please email the Central Music Library or call 0131 242 8054.

These wonderful illustrations by John Faed vividly tell the story of Robert Burns’ poem, ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’. Burns wrote The Cotter’s Saturday Night over the winter of 1785 – 86 when he was 26 years old.

Life was hard for a cotter (sometimes spelt ‘cottar’) and his family. Cotters, or cottagers, were labourers within the farming community. Their daily objective was to provide food and shelter for their families.

Faed’s pictures bring Burns words to life and we can clearly see the story unfold. The cotter turns for home, tired at the end of a week’s work. It is Saturday evening and he is enthusiastically welcomed home by his small children. Once indoors beside the fireside and amongst his wife and family his worries are left behind. Gradually, the family’s older children arrive home and recount stories from their week at work.

Jenny, the eldest daughter, is embarrassed when a young man arrives at the cottage to see her. She is relieved though when her mother shows her approval of their guest and her father talks to him about farming. Interrupting the story, Burns takes one verse to write emotively about the joys of love and Faed imagines the young lovers spending time together in a romantic woodland glen.

Returning to his theme, Burns describes how once supper is over, the family sit together round the fireplace to hear the father solemnly read from the cherished family bible.

Visit Capital Collections, our online gallery, to read verses from the poem alongside their accompanying illustrations.

Everyone’s welcome. To book your place contact Carol Marr on 0131 529 5547 or email oxgangs.library@edinburgh.gov.uk

But the good news is that we also have two e-audiobooks curerntly available for loan – so get in quick!

Alternatively, while you’re waiting you could borrow books which explore similar themes – here are three titles we enjoyed:

Eastern Standard Time by Cory Doctorow

Art is an up-and-coming interface designer, working on the management of data flow along the Massachusetts Turnpike. He’s doing the best work of his career and can guarantee that the system will be the most counterintuitive, user-hostile piece of software ever pushed forth into the world. Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur.

The Housekeeper and the Professor byYoko Ogawa

He is a maths professor with a peculiar problem – ever since a head injury 17 years ago, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is a housekeeper with a ten-year-old son, who is entrusted to take care of him. Each morning, as they are reintroduced to one another, a strange relationship blossoms between them.

Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler

The story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his 61st year. A classical pedant, he’s just been ‘let go’ from his schoolteaching job and downsizes to a tiny out-of-town apartment. When he goes to bed early and alone on the first night, he wakes up in hospital unable to recall how he got there.

If you or someone you know is learning English as a second language at intermediate level why not come along? We are a friendly informal group and by reading and sharing books together we build our confidence in reading, listening to and speaking English.

The group meets at 5pm on the first Wednesday of every month at Fountainbridge Library.

If you’d like to find out more contact wendy.pearson@edinburgh.gov.uk or call 0131 242 8022

One such collection is the Ernest Levy Archive which was gifted to us in 2010 by his daughter Judy Russell. Ernest was a holocaust survivor who after the war settled in Scotland. Originally from Bratislava, he spent 48 years in Glasgow, where he became a leading figure in the Scottish Jewish community. He spoke out about his experiences throughout his life, knowing that his testimony would help future generations remember this terrible time in history.

The Ernest Levy Archive consists of a large collection of books, manuscripts and music and the library is currently cataloguing the material and undertaking a programme of developing resources for the public so they can access information about Ernest’s experiencesand his message of tolerance and respect.

The first part of this programme is an exhibition that will be held in the Central Library from January 23rd – March 15th 2012. This will use photographs and text from Ernest’s collection to present the story of his life. A related exhibition of material relating to the Jewish experience during World War II will be on display in the Reference Library.

The start of our exhibition coincides with Holocaust Memorial Day 2012 (27th January) whose theme this year is Speak Up, Speak Out. This very much fits in with Ernest’s efforts to educate and inform people about the events he had survived.  Ernest believed that the memorial day should act as a focus for those races and groups still under persecution as well as the historical victims of racism and prejudice.

But if it’s something more traditional you’re after, come along to Central Library on the night itself when we’ll have Burns songs performed by the Edinburgh University Renaissance Choir  and Stuart McHardy reciting the poetry. The fun starts at 5.30pm and all are welcome.

To get you in the mood here’s Sean Kane performing ‘To a mouse’ in Central Library.