I’m back!
I’ve taken a few months out to explore an opportunity on the Isle of Skye, but I’m back in the libraries again. And the one thing I’ve forgotten — some of the regular customers’ names!
The computer system comes back to me quickly on my return, although at first it feels like walking through mud. I’m in a different library now, and it’s really busy — I spend the first day shelving, putting books on the reservations shelf, sending books on to where they are wanted. I barely have time to talk to any customers or answer the phone!
The next day I get an opportunity to go back to my old library for the afternoon. As I walk in I see the familiar faces of a regular customer as well as the colleague I used to work with. We have a great afternoon catching up (of course assisting customers too!), whilst putting up pictures for the Summer Reading Challenge treasure hunt and stringing the medals. It feels very intimate, this library. There’s an amateur production in the hall next week so I book a ticket for it. There’s an exhibition in the hall about proposed changes to the area north of the library — building up sea defences, increasing the amount of land for industry. Someone’s had a wedding in the hall and left what look like lanterns hanging from the roof.
The next day my hours mean I start an hour and a half later, so, according to the rules, there’s no break. I don’t mind — I’d rather get paid for every hour I’m working! I hear two of my colleagues are leaving — one who started the same time as me.
And that’s my 3 days done in this library.
I have two afternoons working as relief staff in different libraries for the rest of the week, both with colleagues I’ve not met before. There are changes here too — two new permanent members (who’ve not worked in libraries before I hear, and have yet to start) and a team leader, who’s been filling in for maternity leave, is leaving after only 3 months.
My colleague, I discover, spent a number of years working in Malawi! I find it incredible that there are 3 of us working in this library who know it well.
The library is quiet — I’m pleased to see there’s no sign of the security guard who was here for a while. The layout has been changed round and I think that might prevent antisocial behaviour. I’ve been away so long my login has been disabled, but a phone call and it’s activated once again. It’s a bit like the blind leading the blind when we close up, but we manage somehow.
The following day I’m again with a new colleague… and the library is quiet. There’s a young, keen work experience girl who tells me she’s been working here all week, and I ask her why she chose a library — she tells me two of her aunts worked in libraries! At my request to put some books on display in the children’s section, she thoughtfully chooses books relating to the theme of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge (‘Animal Agents’), which begins at the end of next week. To this end, a little girl comes in with her mother to join the library. Her mother joins, and her brother — they all have different surnames, so it’s a good thing I check. I ask the little girl for her birth date, and she gives me the day and the month, and when I ask which year, she says in surprise “this one!” Her mother laughs and the little girl is obviously embarrassed, so I say I wasn’t clear and it’s my fault. She soon forgets the error when I let her choose a sticker.
There’s a lovely photographic exhibition in the library, but no book to go with it. It’s about the ladies who swim in the outdoor pool down the road. I make a note of the artist’s contact details, and she replies to my email telling me where I can see more of her photos — you can see them here. What I like, apart from the quality of the photos, is the physical beauty of the women — none of them are mature models, yet they are smiling and look comfortable in their swimming costumes, whatever their size and shape. In these days of obsession with physical ‘perfection’, it’s refreshing. I’m almost tempted to go for a swim myself!
I’m in yet a different library on Saturday. Since I was last here, about a year ago, it’s been fitted out to provide ‘open access’ i.e. those registered can enter the library for a number of hours when there are no staff on site. It seems to be a fairly straightforward adaptation, and I’m told there’s only once been a problem with the doors. However, despite the cost of this, the library is scheduled to close next March, along with another 16 of the 27 in Bristol, in any of the 3 scenarios provided in the council’s consultation documents. So today the Friends of the library are holding a coffee morning to raise people’s awareness of the consultation documents and to help them complete them — or discuss them — because, as council staff, we cannot express our personal opinions publicly. There are almost as many Friends as there are customers. They don’t know it’s my first day here. But they do leave us a plate of biscuits as they leave.
We lock up and cash up and then set the library back to open access as we leave via the back door. And that’s my first week back in libraries over.

