For the love of libraries

Free books! 📚

Photo by Anna Hunko on Unsplash

Hello you,

I hope you’ve been okay this week? I hope you’ve felt the sun on your face or spotted something beautiful in an unexpected place.

I met my new therapist for the third time this week and inevitably they invited me to think about little Janelle.  

At first, I reminisced through nostalgic specs about how much young Janelle loved school. Her joy at playing with wonderful friends (whom she still has to this day), the art-making and of soaking up new ideas like a sponge.

But then, I put myself back into little Janelle’s rubber-soled school shoes and remembered just how afraid she was an awful lot of the time. Little Janelle had many worries, ranging from pebble-sized to mountainous, and her approach was to think and think and think her way to solutions.

Guess who still does this…?

There were certain places in which the incessant background hum of little Janelle’s thoughts quietened for a few moments. And…I realised the same is true for 34-year-old Janelle.

One of these places was, and still is, the library.

On Thursday I took myself off to the library to collect my reservations. (Side note: how cool is it that I can request books and they’ll be transported from all across Lancashire and made into a pile just for me?)

It was a day of brooding skies heavy with rain and tyres thrashing along wet tarmac. Not exactly the crisp, frost-glistening Advent day of our winter fantasies.

But when I walked through the library doors, I felt an immediate sense of calm. Thinking back, I always have done. I have such fond memories of Harrogate’s basement children’s library and its resident stick insects, of climbing to the top floor at high school and working alongside the novels and of bagsy-ing a warm corner of The Robinson Library whilst at uni in Newcastle.

One of my absolute favourite things to do is to spend an open-ended pocket of time perusing library shelves.

The library is a place for slowing down and for quiet solitude. It’s a place of almost infinite worlds and doors to escape through.

I’ll run my eyes along hundreds and thousands of book spines. Every so often, one will call to me for some mysterious reason.

I’ll pull it out, crack open the cover and explore its pages. It might be brand new and untouched. Perhaps I’ll be its first reader? Or, its softened pages and the messy ladder of date stamps inside its cover may indicate it has been appreciated time and time again.

And what a thrill that I can walk out of the building with a tote bag slung over my shoulder, filled with writing to explore. All for free! (Of course, that’s if I remember to return the books on time).

Where else in society do we have this sort of communal and trust-based resource?

“…libraries are a great equaliser in that you can be rich, you can be poor, you can be in between but they are available to everyone,” said Malorie Blackman earlier this year at Hay Festival, speaking about why libraries must be ring fenced and protected.

I was gutted to read that more than 800 libraries in Britain closed between 2010-2019. This is such a travesty.

“Cutting libraries in a recession is like cutting hospitals in a plague,” according to library assistant Eleanor Crumblehulme and her viral Tweet.

And of course, libraries are about so much more than books (free books!).

For instance, this winter, my local library and many others across the country have been designated as warm spaces; “safe and welcoming spaces to support residents during the winter months.”

And, just in case you aren’t already putting on your coat and boots to head out to your nearest library, here are some other tips to note.

Did you know…

• If there’s a book you want that isn’t in stock at your library, you can request to have it ordered in

• You can also borrow audiobooks and eBooks from your library without even leaving the house!

• Authors get paid when you borrow their books from the library

• Many libraries offer you access to Press Reader meaning you can read thousands of magazines and newspapers on your phone/ device for free

• Some libraries have a delivery scheme for people who can’t get to the bricks and mortar building

• Is there anything else you’d add?

You may well have your own precious library connections or stories. If you’d be up for sharing yours, please do leave a comment. I (and little inner child Janelle) would love to read them.

Take care this week,

Janelle