When I was little, every Christmas I would get the same thing in my stocking: a headlight so I could read in bed late into the night. While everyone else was sleeping, I would stay up for hours, immersed in books. By the time Christmas rolled around, I had used my night light so much that I needed a new one. The local library became my place to escape to – a home away from home for me that I shared with so many others whose stories lived on the library’s shelves.

When I walked into Ararat Library, the librarian was sitting in the corner of the dark room wrapped in a blanket.  I realized why, as a chill came over me – it was freezing inside. There was a quaint charm to the place - natural light shone in through the window and illuminated the dust on books that had been untouched for who knows how long, as if the room was the ghost of a library past. There was not a computer in sight. In fact, the library still used the old index card system of cataloging.

The next library I visited had a tremendous number of books, but was much like the first – there was no heat or electricity, the water didn’t work in the bathroom and the floor was coming apart. When the library’s director took me into his office, I noticed a massive leak in one corner of the ceiling. The ceiling was water damaged and the sheet rock was falling off. When I pointed it out to him, he said, “Oh, that’s nothing,” and led me into one of the other rooms filled with books. I looked up and noticed that an entire wall was completely water damaged. “This past winter, this whole room flooded,” he said. “We had to move 72,000 books.”

Ararat and Ashtarak libraries are among ten libraries outside of Yerevan that the Civilitas Foundation is refurbishing with funds from the US Embassy. The initiative is case-specific – Civilitas works with each library to figure out what the library needs. Refurbishing can include heating, a cataloging system, building renovations, window and door replacement and book donations. In addition, Civilitas provides each library with computers and a multifunctional printer/scanner/fax machine.

The main objective of the project is to support and strengthen public libraries in a number of rural and urban communities in Armenia in order to transform them into centers of community life. But in order to do that, the libraries need to be welcoming.

The Armavir Library is on its way to becoming just that. After visiting Ararat and Ashtarak libraries, I was shocked when I walked into the Armavir library. With help from the Civilitas Foundation, the library has a shiny new tile floor, freshly painted walls and a renovated computer room. A section was devoted to English books and I spotted a few that I had read as a child. It was starting to look like a place I could call home.