Matilda-like, I spent a good deal of a fairly solitary childhood visiting the local library, which is probably why I ended up with my Literature degree. My Grandad would take me there up to five days a week, which I only appreciated at a recent family reading of his daily diaries. When I’d finished all the books in the library’s children’s section, the very nice librarian suggested I try other libraries, so Mum would take me to those too (unlike Matilda’s Mrs Phelps, who simply handed her Dickens). And for a while, my primary school classes would take a weekly pilgrimage off trekking to the library, which I remember being a fairly pleasant affair, even when it rained, although once there the boys often needed reminding to use their library voices.
“Boys!” scolded my Year 3 teacher who I’ll call Mr Martin, in a stern stage-whisper that I can’t recreate on paper, “You must be quiet in the library. The girls are reading silently, but you…” (here his voice built in intensity and passion) “sometimes I am ashamed to be the same SEX as you!”
There was a stunned pause in the silent library.
And we all enjoyed going home to tell our parents about the time Mr Martin yelled “SEX” in the library.
I do like libraries a lot, which is just as well because I am currently spending a lot of time in one again. As part of my role as school reading lead, I oversee the school library. This is without a doubt the best TLR (responsibility post) I have ever held in school, because it’s fun and creative and no-one chases me for data and targets and there is generally less stress and drama than in other management posts. Partly because everyone I now deal with is LOVELY. (My husband comes home and tells me about a tricky day of reintegration meetings, and I reply about our new colour-coded sticker system with which the Year 7s are helping - it's night and day!)
I now hang out in virtual librarian groups and attend online librarian meetings and have inspiring virtual tours of libraries and hear about their creative initiatives. And everyone has welcomed me with open arms and kind advice and not been the slighted bit mean that I am not a trained librarian and don’t know anything, like what a weeding policy should be, and which are the best suppliers to use, and where to shelve books by du Maurier (it’s under ‘M’ in case you’re interested), and the difference between book tape and sellotape and why you NEVER use normal tape for books. And a year in, I am able to offer suggestions of things that are working for me too, which is nice. Because it turns out I am least very enthusiastic about organising reading events.
Alongside me, there’s a member of support staff who has time allocated to the day-to-day business of the library, and she is one of my fav colleagues ever as well as being probably the most hard-working, uncomplaining, and generous person I know. And she has actually worked in university libraries and so knows what she’s doing, and so I constantly go to her for help, like child new to knitting who has to keep asking her mum to fix a stitch, whilst the mum does all the real work. And it turns out she’s a believer too, and frequently tells me she’s praying for me and what a good job I am doing, and one day after school as we chatted about our plans for the weekend, I mentioned I was being interviewed for an event (which you can read about here: On yes and no. (sarahhadfi.wixsite.com)) so she prayed for me there and then out loud across the library and it was probably the highlight of a 17 year career in schools.
People who care about books seem to be my kind of people, which shouldn’t be a surprise. We are united around a shared love of reading, and no one I’ve met is more passionate about this perhaps than author Cressida Cowell (of the ‘How to train your dragon’ fame).
I recently trooped back to my old college, Homerton, to hear Cressida present on ‘How to train your reader’ (see what they did there.) She spoke a lot and ever so enthusiastically about the importance of school libraries, waving her arms around and getting so excited she accidentally flung her clicker so it broke, and she repeatedly knocked her glasses off her face (good job they were on a granny-string around her neck). As children’s laureate she’s run this whole campaign called “Life-changing libraries” which you can read about here: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/globalassets/resources/life-changing-libraries/life-changing-libraries-report---final.pdf or can be summed up (I quote from her) “Decades of research show that if a child reads for pleasure they are likely to be happier, healthier, to do better at school, to vote and to be more economically successful later in life – all irrespective of background…. Put simply, libraries change lives.”
She seems like my kind of person too.
As does Zadie Smith, whose rousing and outspoken speech in saving her local library caused controversy on Radio Four’s Today programme https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8416166/BBC-criticised-for-bias-over-Zadie-Smiths-R4-broadcast.html It really ought to be listened to in full to get the full impact of her viewpoint; she doesn’t pull any punches.
“Local libraries are gateways, not only to other libraries, but to other lives... I know I would never have seen a single university carrel if I had not grown up living 100 yards from the library in Willesden Green...Once you’ve benefitted from the use of shared institutions you know that to abandon them when they’re no longer of personal necessity is like Wile E Coyote laying down a rope bridge between two precipices only to blow it up once he’s reached the other side, so that no one might follow.”
People are very passionate about libraries, and rightly so.
It’s certainly challenged any stereotype I might have had in my head of a stern and bespectacled librarian telling people to hush. Now, I visit libraries and feel kinship; I organise trips even to the hallowed ground of Cambridge’s University Library (a legal deposit library, meaning it has a copy of all material published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and miles of underground bunkers to store it in) and I shyly mention that yes, I work in a library too. One man has just kindly arranged for some work experience for a student there. He was also surprisingly receptive to my suggestion about after-hours laser tag.
Aside from the very passionate librarians and library-champions like Zadie and Cressida, our school team of student assistant librarians are probably the nicest and kindest kids you could imagine. They will willingly do hours of reshelving, even staying after school when the books mount up, and get super excited by a delivery of library supplies because then they can get stuck into plastic jacketing our shiny new books. (On strike days when I have dragged my own children into school with me, they have been much less enthusiastic about library work; son 1 said he’d never read another “Just William” again after I got him to date label and C-sticker the entire collection.)
My team of paired reading volunteers, mentoring younger students with weekly reading slots, are just the best bunch of sixth formers and parents. And the parents of the younger students being mentored are extremely thankful for this and send me lovely emails. So it’s all win.
And yes, sometimes the boys do need to be reminded about their library voices and how if they want to roll on the floor can they please do so outside and leave the library space for people who actually want to read and work in there. But I avoid yelling at them about sex.
Sometimes they talk to me about stuff though. Twice this week, coincidentally, a student has shyly approached me with an art book slightly opened with a thumb marking a page, to tell me there’s something inappropriate in a book, and when they show me I laugh and tell them I think we can cope with naked breasts and they look super shocked and I wonder what would happen if they took a better look in the human biology section?
It’s a lovely role, though. This week as part of reading lead job, I’ve had the joy of hosting two authors, Julian Sedgwick and Matt Dickinson, both really nice men, and engaging presenters and writers in very different ways. I’ve had a lot of fun standing at the front to introduce them and getting all the glory, then running round like a headless chicken behind the scenes (amusingly, yesterday, the kitchen team kindly provided the coffee urns I’d requested, but no cups, meaning I had to quickly break into a locked kitchen to find some, and I was an actual hot mess having specially overdressed for the occasion in purple dress, purple cardigan, and purple scarf, and ended up with a matching purple face). Anyway, Julian and I have had pleasant email chats about grief and bees and he asked if I wrote too ("There's plenty of time - I was 47 before I got my big break.") and now I am beginning to feel connected to a network of creative people. Yesterday, Matt Dickinson extolled the virtues of school libraries and spoke of Cressida Cowell, and spotted a Bill Bryson book on display and said he was in it, and flipped the pages and showed me an extract from one of his own books, which he had handed Bill a copy of when they were both on author tours in America. What a brilliant community to be part of. Matt asked me if I wrote and I said no, but I sometimes blogged. “Fifty shades of purple?” he asked, looking at my outfit.
I’m certainly happy in a library, regrdless of whether I’m really passionate or knowledgeable enough to be a real librarian (a bit like my Drama teacher imposter-syndrome: On drama and underwear. (sarahhadfi.wixsite.com) I’m first and foremost an English teacher, but I’m having a glorious time and I am definitely finding books and libraries hot stuff.
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