If you’re reading this then I already know that you love a library, but do you love a library simply because you love books or is there more to it than that? When I was asked to write this post I started to look at what libraries meant to me and why it is that when I step into a library I feel that I’m in a safe place where nothing bad can happen to me, where I can get lost in an imaginary world of infinite possibilities, where I can find the answers to all my questions.
My earliest memory of a library is between the ages of five and nine years old. Every Saturday my mum would take us to Teddington library, an ornate red brick, baroque style building that, it turns out, is a Carnegie Library, built in 1906. I can clearly remember the effect that building had on me, imposing but inviting, cocooning but awe-inspiring. I’d have my library ticket held safely in my sticky hand, excited to peruse the shelves of new and never heard of books. I was fascinated by the boxes and boxes of library cards required, carefully watching the librarians searching for the right place to put the cards. Everything had its place, was neat and ordered. Nothing could possibly go wrong in a place like that.
My senior school library seemed to be a place that was more suited for study, but to study surrounded by books I now know is a luxury that should be revelled in, having the awareness that you can just go off and find that piece of information you need at a moment’s notice was invaluable in those pre-internet days.
Libraries fell from my radar as I left school and moved to London for work, but when I had children, they came back into my life.
Corsham library, then housed in a fairly unprepossessing one-storey building on Pickwick Road, was one of the most welcoming places for a harried mother of two lively boys. Here they would happily be quiet, listen to story-time, enjoy finding new picture books, new reading books. There were books that we would re-read and re-read – King Smelly Feet (sadly out of print) and Beetle Boy, Pants, and Eat Your Peas.
Bedtime reading was a marathon, with the opportunity to take out (I think) up to nine books per child, we had a myriad of books to choose from each night. I was heartbroken when my boys decided they were old enough to read for themselves at bedtime – no more beautiful picture books, no more fantastical tales.
Libraries began to form an important part of my working life when I started researching my first novel, The Herbalist’s Secret. Bath Central Library was able to find me books on the history of Scotland, the Cotton Spinning Industry and Herbalism. And what I couldn’t get from Bath, I was able to go and read at The British Library. Long, delightful days holed up in their Reading Rooms with a stack of books, writing notes, soaking up the atmosphere.
And then, whilst writing my second novel, as I studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, their library became a lifeline, piles of borrowed books lining the windowsill of my tiny study. Unfortunately, I do nothing to help dispel the myth of the slightly dotty, solitary, woman writer, by occasionally returning Bath Spa books to Bath Central Library. Luckily the librarians are good detectives and have always worked out who the guilty party is.
Without libraries I simply couldn’t do my job. And this has been heavily highlighted by the hacking of the British Library; there are lots of books I currently can’t get access to as they just aren’t available until the technological difficulties are sorted out. This means there are so many people out there – writers, researchers, those studying for their theses, anyone who’s trying to find out something that’s important to them – they are lost without the ability to find out the information they require.
Without access to libraries, we lose a rich seam of information, we lose a way of making our lives better, more interesting, more stimulating. Please keep using them.
Annabelle Marx
April 2024
Annabelle Marx is the author of The Herbalist’s Secret which was published in 2023. She has just completed an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and is in the process of completing her second novel.