This is a small town library with a fair range of reference books and a good range of childrens books, and some adult fiction.
At the moment it seems to be frequented mainly by people reading papers and using the computers. It has a good range of CDs to borrow too.
Although I was pleasantly surprised that the reading room was almost full when I was in, It would be nice to see a more lively culture around this local library. It's in a fantastic building (one of two places in Bo'ness that's supposed to be haunted - the other being Kinneil House) and it has that old-book smell (even tho the books aren't really that old).
If you ask the staff there is a collection of 'local history' books that they keep in a special room. These books are very rare and you can't take them out of the library. But they should definitely be of interest to people who are interested in the local area, which is fascinating for such a small town. Bo'ness has been home to the medieval village of Kinneil, a well-documented suicide and a 'white lady', a Roman occupation with a fort, and a farmer's discovery of Bo'ness's portion of Hadrian's wall. It's been a prolific witch-burning site, birthplace of the father of John MacLean (Scottish revolutionary, not Die Hard protagonist), the site of commercial whaling, and visited by Robert Burns (who was not complimentary).
Across the road from the library is the foreshore area which has recently been the subject of major development, and is on the top of an old coal mine (Bo'ness has also been a major site of coal mining!). A memorial to Bo'ness's miners stands next to the library. read more