A Library Experience

One busy day at spud during a series of student workshops I was asked what my career had been. I said I was a librarian. The response was horrified screams and shouts of: ‘ I hate libraries’.  Several of the students were dyslexic and their stories of why they hated libraries resonated with many of us including me as I remembered how I had felt as a child when I was told not to return my books the day after I had borrowed them.  I was not dyslexic but I finished my books overnight.

So it was suggested that I did a performance of a stereotype librarian. The sort that says Shhhh. The sort of librarian that frightens people.  The sort of librarian who tells people off when they put books back in the wrong place.  The sort of librarian I never was.  Most of us are not like that but the stereotype persists.

I told of how some people treat libraries using inappropriate things as bookmarks: banana skins, bacon  rashers…

And when did you last go into a library that had SILENCE notices on the wall?