Newcastle Library - one of the Libraries We Love

Today is National Libraries Day and to mark this occasion, we’d like to bring your attention to a feature that’s been running on our website for about a year, but many blog readers may be unaware of: Libraries We Love.

The idea of Libraries We Love is to focus on the things to love about libraries, and not just in the UK but all over the world. So far we’ve featured this diverse selection, which offer something unique and brilliant in every case:

Walsall Central Library, UK

Stoke on Trent Library, UK

Burnley Library, UK

African Library Project, Africa/USA

The Travelling Suitcase Library (based in Leeds, UK)

Woodchurch Library, Wirral, UK

Halton Lea Library, UK

Oswestry Library, Shropshire, UK

Seattle Public Library, USA

Newcastle City Library, UK

Read all about why we love them on our website.

We’ve asked actor David Morrissey, who is interviewed in the forthcoming issue of The Reader magazine (issue 45, March 2012), to tell us about the Library (Libraries) He Loves especially for this feature:

I had spent many happy hours in Liverpool Central Library when I was growing up. And when I moved to London I couldn’t believe there wasn’t just one central place I could walk into. A tutor at RADA told me about the British Library reading room at the British Museum and I went to check it out. I had to fill in various forms and also get verification from RADA before being allowed in, but once I had my pass, there was no stopping me. I was amazed by the low lighting and green leather tops on the tables. The wood and brass. It was like some grand gentleman’s club. It was different from Liverpool central library in design but the feeling of hushed collective learning was just the same. I now work a lot in the New British Library (not that new any more I grant you!) and am so thankful for its existence. When I travel up and down the country I often visit local libraries, it is never about the books they can provide, but the peace and calm they provide for my ever ticking brain. It’s a place to totally concentrate.

If there’s a library you love that you’d like to see us feature, please contact us and tell us about it.

Novelist and flash fiction writer David Gaffney, author of Sawn-Off Tales (2006) and Aromabingo (2007), will be appearing at Spellow Library on Monday 30th January, 6pm-7:30pm. David will be discussing his recent book, The Half Life of Songs.

Then, on Wednesday 1st February, 6pm-7:30pm, Childwall Library will play host to Gladys Mary Coles. Best known as a poet, with publications including The Song of the Butcher Bird (2006) and The Echoing Green (2002), Gladys will discuss her body of work and her debut novel, Clay.

Entrance for both events is free and seating is available on a first come, first served basis. Copies of the authors’ books will be on sale.

For more information about the David Gaffney event, please contact Spellow Library, County Road, L4 3QF; 0151 293 8365.

For more information about the Gladys Mary Coles event, please contact Childwall Library, Fiveways Centre, L15 6UT; 0151 233 2746.

For more information on Liverpool Libraries see www.liverpool.gov.uk.

For more information on regional events, reading groups and suggestions for further reading, see www.time-to-read.co.uk.

Editor: Please not that there was an error in the date of the Childwall event. This event will actually be taking place on Wednesday 1st February.

A fortnight ago, Niall started our worldwide literature journey off by taking us all the way to Brazil; now we’ll jump from South America over to Central Europe, as I’ll be your tour guide for exploring the literary sights of the Czech Republic.

Before it became a popular stag and hen party hotspot, Prague – the capital city of the Czech Republic – was regarded for two quite famous literary exports. The first, a person: the author of many of the 20th century’s most notable novels and short stories, Franz Kafka, who was born in the city in 1883 (when it was still a part of pre WWI Austria-Hungary). The second, a book: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, written in 1984 by Milan Kundera. The novel immortalises Prague in the midst of what was one of the most difficult and significant times in the Czech Republic’s history – the Prague Spring of 1968, an attempt to reform Czech communism, of which Kundera himself was involved. Despite its title, the book may be considered anything but ‘light’ in its subject matter; dealing with the fate of the individual and suggesting that in the end, such a fate is meaningless as in an infinite universe the life of one person is insignificant – or as Kundera would put it, unbearably light.

The Strahov Monastery Library

Given this cheery philosophical outlook, it might be worth considering how best to spend an ultimately futile existence. Surely a pretty good way of going about things would be to soak up the contents of as many books as possible, as does one of the novel’s main characters, Franz (perhaps named after Kafka? Seems like a handy coincidence). Franzes both of the fictional and the Kafka variety would certainly be happy that they lived in a city containing such a historic, intricate and well-stocked library as the Strahov Monastery Library. Part of the Strahov Monastery, the library is 868 years old and has withstood such perils as fire and army invasion to hold over 16,000 books alongside 110,000 volumes of monastic writings – one of the oldest collections in the Czech Republic. With its beautiful and incredibly ornate Baroque interior and several special library rooms, the Strahov Monastery Library is as much of a tourist attraction as a library. Unfortunately given the rare and ancient quality of many of the books housed there, so much as a human breath would be likely to adversely affect their preservation; therefore most of the library is strictly off-limits to up close and personal inspection. You can however go on a virtual 360 degree tour of the library (also handy if you can’t afford the air fare to Prague).

Something that allows much wider access to literature for the Czech Republic’s readers – and those beyond – is the Libraries For All project. The Multicultural Center Prague is a partner in the project, which has the goal of upgrading local public libraries in the city (as well as also operating in Austria, Sweden and Germany) to ensure that they fully serve the needs of the Czech Republic’s migrant community. Libraries For All is working to make libraries in the Czech Republic truly multicultural, involving, diverse and democratic – an aim that Kundera with all his political activism would surely be proud of.

The Festive Readers Evening will be held at St James’ Library, Birkenhead on Wednesday 7th December and is sure to serve up Christmas cheer by the stocking-full. Appropriately, given the Dickens’ fever we’re currently experiencing at TRO (as well as is the reading population at large with the approaching bicentenary), the evening will have a distinctly Dickensian flavour. There’ll be festive readings, books, lively discussion, a quiz, mulled wine, nibbles and many more seasonal treats in store – including an appearance from very special guest Brian Nellist.

Sounds like a perfect evening to really get into the Christmas mood.

The event will run from 6.30-9pm. Tickets cost £3 and are available from all libraries in Wirral. For more information, you can also telephone St James’ Library on 0151 652 2268.

It is unlikely, however, that any of them will be as controversial as Carl Roberts’s This Side Idolatry, a novel published in 1928 which portrayed Dickens as ‘a hypocrite, philanderer, selfish, an egoist, vulgar, morose, and avaricious, caricaturing his friends in his books behind their backs,’ according to the reviewer from The Sunday Times upon its release.

The book so offended the city of Portsmouth, where Dickens was born in 1812, that it was banned from its libraries; only now has it been restored to their shelves  in the name of ‘freedom of expression and debate,’ says Dom Kippin, Portsmouth City Council’s literature officer.

‘Dickens’s literary legacy is strongly established and [Roberts's] book merely adds to the rich tapestry of ideas and opinions that make him one of the English language’s greatest writers,’ he continues. So if you’re in Portsmouth and want to catch up on some literary gossip then head down to your local library and join in the debate!

The Reader Organisation’s annual Penny Readings, which follow in a tradition established by Dickens, will take place in St George’s Hall in Liverpool on December 4th – full details to follow in mid-November so watch this space! 

How will it be, I wonder, as I set up the room?  People begin to arrive, greet each other, make a cup of tea and settle in.  Shona arrives and I feel such relief.  It is so good to see her.  ‘Sorry’ she says, ‘I had something on last week and couldn’t make it’.  ‘It is great to see you again’ I say.  She does not know what it actually means to me to have her here again.

We begin by reminding ourselves what has happened and begin to realise how complicated it is.  Lots to explain and I get myself in a muddle trying to make sure everyone understands.

Noel says ‘can I play Don John, the bad one’?

We assign roles and I ask Barbara if she wants to take a role.  She looks worried and anxious and I say, ‘what about Claudio?’  She says okay.

Then we start reading, finishing off  act 2 scene 1.  Act 2 scene 2.  The vicious hard-hearted Don John and his side kick Borrachio plan the nasty scheme to cause maximum distress and chaos to Hero and Claudio.  We can all see what is going to happen and feel like shouting out as if we are in a pantomime ‘look out!  behind you!’  But we can do nothing other than read on.

When we get to Balthasar singing his song, Noel refuses to sing – Sigh No More.  No problem…whatever it takes to keep this show on the road, I’m your woman, so I  sing it and find that almost everyone starts to sing with me.  Just as well really as my voice on its own is pretty dire!  Cuddled up among the other 6 or 7 voices it’s not so bad!  We make a great and glorious sound and get caught up in the rhythm and rhyme.  Thankfully, Balthasar takes up his role again.

Barbara’s part is not small and she reads it very well.  I can see her confidence rising as she looks at me for confirmation and I smile at her letting her know I can see her effort and achievement.  It is only the second time she has ever read in two years of attending the group.  Barbara has told the group she is severely dyslexic and can’t read and here she is reading Shakespeare aloud in a group!

We complete act 2 scene 3 and manage act 3 scene 1, all in an unhurried and easy way and end the session with Robert Herrick’s ‘To the Virgins, To Make Much Of Time’.

There is a buoyant mood in the group as we slowly pack up and get ready to leave.  Nobody seems in a hurry and I overhear people congratulating Barbara on reading her role so well.  Magic.

The Rest

It takes us six weeks in total to read the play.  The pace has felt good, not too fast, but we are ready to finish now.  The reading does require extra effort in order to understand.  And such a lot happens in the action.  It is important to remember who else is on stage and what the other actors would be doing at the same time as those who are speaking as this can dramatically alter the meaning and impact.  There is a surprising amount of complexity to keep up with and I was aware of some people’s confusion at times.  Slowing down definitely helps.

Not only is the Shakespearian language very different to what we are used to but much of the way of life is also strikingly at odds with what we know.  The idea that a woman’s worth is almost zilch if she is not a virgin on marrying or that a father would rather his daughter dead than discover she was not a maid on her wedding day takes some getting used to for a modern audience – well, it did for our group!

The visit to the Globe production of Much Ado About Nothing is in September and most people seem keen to go.  We discuss watching the play on DVD and they want to do this too so a date is arranged.  It has been hard, at times, to imagine the action of the play as we read.  Viewing the DVD or theatre production will let us see what we have been reading as it was meant to be experienced – as a dramatic production.

As a facilitator reading Shakespeare with a group has definitely required more of me.  Largely this is because I am not confident myself with the language and I must put in extra effort to understand.  I found myself at times needing to do quite a bit of explaining to ensure people were able to follow.  Sometimes it is a fine line between letting people work it out for themselves and explaining.  However if people get bored because the words begin to not mean anything then that doesn’t work either.

Have a wide range of capacity in the group is also a juggling act as a facilitator.  Some people have understood it all and don’t need help but others struggle and finding a way to make sure they can keep up without singling them out is a skill in itself.

On reflection it seems to me that people are happy to have read the play and are also pleased to move on to something else.  Shona says to me while we are making a cup of tea:

It is difficult to read but I did notice it getting easier the more we read.

Another person tells me that she thinks next time (NEXT TIME!!) we should read Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Small turnout, five people only.  Three apologies from last week and two unknowns.  Shona, who is new to the group, looked to me as if she hated it last week, she had a strange look on her face all through the group.  And she is not here…I’ve frightened her away, she can see I’m rubbish!  Immediately I start to worry…maybe it is too much, perhaps they did not enjoy it, maybe it will harm the group doing something that is so difficult.  I try not to let the anxiety I am feeling become obvious to those present.  Three of the people who are away are the most comfortable with Shakespeare – each having read some previously and having enthusiasm for it – and they are not there to bring that to the group.

Jenny says of last week that she is ‘proud’ of managing to read what we have so far.  Others agree but I am aware that there is a strong underlying feeling that it is difficult.

We start.  Act one, scene three.  Pretty straight forward but I wonder if I am spending too much time trying to explain the plot.  I seem to have got into a role of explaining the action.  I am anxious that people will get bored and so I am trying to make sure everyone is up with the action and on board, that nobody gets left behind.

The reading is very good.  People are reading their parts very well, not rushing the words and I am enjoying their efforts a lot.

We move onto act two, scene one.  It is a long scene and it seems difficult for everyone to keep in mind the whole of the action.  We break it into small bits and I remind everyone that a lot of actors are on the stage and we are getting different perspectives form each little interaction.  We don’t manage to finish the scene and end two and a half pages before the end.

Jo says ‘it’s hard’ and others agree with her.  Noel says ‘I think it’s beyond me’.  The only consolation about this is that Noel does say most things are beyond him.  My anxiety increases and I start to wonder if we will make it to the end.  I don’t want to stop, that will feel like an acknowledgement that it is too hard for us.  That would not be something I want to have people think or feel.  I have to keep going and find a way to keep it feeling fun, enjoyable and doable.

Why have I put myself through this!  We could have stuck to a novel.  We would really enjoy it and I would not be worrying like I am now!

Session three next week…

Lessons for the terrified on reading Shakespeare with a group

Shakespeare has mostly terrified me as a reader.  The few times I tried to read him I felt all my inadequacies loom before me in their hugest possible forms.  I’m no good, my intellect is rubbish, I can only manage simple things, people will see I am stupid, the list goes on!

Last year I set myself a goal to read some Shakespeare.  I read The Winter’s Tale with two other people, The Merchant of Venice in a small group of three or four people and Macbeth on my own.  I followed up all the readings with viewing the play either at the theatre or on film.

It was hard, and I did not understand all of it easily – probably some of it at all.  I would benefit from second and third readings of each – but I have learnt that anything worth reading is worth reading again and that fuller understanding and enjoyment would be the gain of doing so.  I can imagine reading them again – they were good. 

So far, in my role as a facilitator of Get Into Reading groups, I have only tackled Shakespeare in poem form or short excerpts from his plays.  The thought of reading a play with a group has terrified me.  People will see I am no good at this and finally they will realise I am a fake! 

So it was with much anxiety that I suggested to the group that we read Much Ado About Nothing.  We are likely to have the opportunity to attend a performance at the Globe Theatre in September and I hoped that group members might be keen to read it before we went.  Also, the group has read quite a range of material yet not really anything very difficult and I hoped that they might feel a real sense of achievement if we did read Shakespeare. 

Some of the novels the group has previously read include Of Mice and Men, The Uncommon Reader, Silas Marner, The End of the Affair and, most recently, The Mayor Of Casterbridge.  We have also read some plays including An Inspector Calls and All My Sons. 

The group meets in a library and has a regular core of around eight or nine people who attend most weeks with some others coming more infrequently.  It is an open group so it has people who come as they have seen notices promoting the group and it sounds of interest.  Others are referred by mental health workers, occupational therapists or drug and alcohol agencies.  The range of confidence with literature varies greatly, from those with an English degree to one member who tells us she has severe dyslexia and is only learning to read now (in her 40’s).    

Not everybody was excited about the idea. However, fortunately, some people were very keen. We took time to discuss the possibility.  One woman said ‘I’ve never read any Shakespeare so for that reason I’d like to do it’.  Another person pointed out that we have a person with English as a second language and that he would find it difficult.  I agreed with her and asked this person what his thoughts were.  He said he found all reading in English challenging but would be happy to join us anyway as he thought he would get something worthwhile from the experience, as he had from everything else we had read together.  Another woman told us she would really like to do it as she was doing GCSE English and had to do some Shakespeare for that and thought it might be helpful for her. 

Agreement was arrived at and the following week we started.

Session One:

The turnout to the group was good – ten people.  Even those who had not been that keen came – phew!  They are still with me.  I was nervous and anxious and I know it showed. 

Some of the group had been at the event last year in which Ben Crystal gave us a mini workshop presentation on Comedy of Errors immediately before we saw the play in Regents Park.  I reminded people that he said it is supposed to be fun and not to try to understand everything.  This was like being given permission not to stress – very helpful!

It seemed important to begin by stating some ideas that would underpin our endeavour.  So I started with a little ‘speech’ stating:

• We will go slowly, there is no need to hurry
• No question is a bad/stupid question – if you want to know something ask and someone in the group will most likely be able to help
• Its ok not to understand it all, in fact don’t expect to do so – some people spend years studying it, we are reading it once
• It is likely to feel hard but we have the benefit of the group to help us

I handed out photocopies of the character list and also a very brief synopsis on each scene.  I decided that certainty and clarity would win out over anticipation and mystery in this case!  People were very keen on this and seemed to find having something to hold on to very reassuring.

So off we went. 

We read the first twenty five lines and stopped.  Pretty straight forward.  A quick summary of the content; Don Pedro is arriving soon with Claudio from the war.  Claudio’s uncle sheds tears of joy at his nephew’s good report.  John says to the group:

what a beautiful line…’how lovely it is to weep at joy than to joy at weeping’. 

 I start to relax and breathe… maybe we can do this?  Maybe it will be ok.  We read on. 

Scene One is quite long and takes us some time.  When we finish I suggest maybe that is enough for the day and we should read the poem but someone says:

The next scene is very short can we read it?

So we are off again.  And it is good.  The tension in the play is building.  We, as readers, are understanding the action and are getting interested. It is harder than we are used to but we are managing and it is not so hard we can’t understand at all.  And we have enjoyed ourselves.  Perhaps there is not much more we can ask?    

The readers enunciate clearly and are measured and well paced, impressive in fact and most people do volunteer to read, even Barbara who has never read before!  She says ‘give me a big part’ but when we come to choose a role she opts for a small one which she manages well.

In choosing a poem my thoughts were to pick something related in theme but also relatively simple in content.  We read ‘The Secret’ by John Clare.  And then they ask for a second poem.  I look at the clock and think, ok lets squeeze it in and I give the ‘Pretty Words’ by Elinor Wylie.  We read it and two people say simultaneously, “wow”, and one says, “that is so fantastic’.  “Yes”, I think, “I agree”.  This gift of words is fantastic.

Peter ends the session by saying:

Things like Eliot, Shakespeare and Hardy seemed grand and unapproachable to me before but now I wonder why I have not had it all my life as it is so good.

I knew I’d picked the right seminar at the TRO conference when the first slide in the Libraries We Love presentation was of an old man wielding a guitar, impressively close to doing the splits:

That old man is, in fact, Keith Richards busting out on his trademark Telecaster. Richards was guitarist with The Rolling Stones from the early 1960s up until their demise in… no, incredibly they’re still creaking around… anyway, it has come to our attention that Richards is a big fan of libraries. Well, my two great loves are books and rock ‘n’ roll so I thought I’d have a look and see what involvement Richards has had, and could have, in the future of public libraries.

The first thing I found was a video of a long interview with Richards at the New York Central Library.

If you click along to around 8 minutes 50 seconds in, you will hear him talking about his love of libraries as a child growing up in Kent. I was struck by Richards’ response to the interviewer’s initial question about libraries - he smiles and says ‘Sure’ with quiet relish as though it’s his special topic on Mastermind. For a boy expelled from school, it is interesting to hear Richards speak of his willingness to obey the rules of libraries and that he valued them as places of civilisation.

In a BBC interview with Andrew Marr, Richards agreed that his childhood was Dickensian and that he was ‘one of the reprobates’, something which clearly continued into adulthood when he was jailed in 1967 on drugs charges. There is something about strict routine and regulation which connects prisons with Richards’ perception of libraries. The idea of ‘thou shalt not’, perhaps. Nevertheless, that libraries operate around their own internal laws (no talking, no food and drink etc.) was somehow appealing to Richards; strangely the institutionalism of his library was the thing he enjoyed, perhaps giving a sense of order to what became an otherwise hectic lifestyle. It certainly makes you wonder how we could achieve a balance between relaxing rules to make libraries less intimidating but also preserving rules so as to maintain the comfort of clarity and stability for library users.

Next, I came came across a short article in The Times, ‘It’s only books and shelves but I like it’. The article reports on the career Richards might have chosen had he not become a musician…

Last year Richards released a book himself, Life. I haven’t read it yet but reviews of the autobiography suggest it is a warts n all type of thing. I searched online for a taster and found a digital version of it, available here.

(You might need to press on the + button to make it legible.)

During the conference seminar, we had a long discussion about which titles should be in our libraries and who should choose them. Maybe Life ought to be among the stock on our dream library’s shelves – it is life we need to breathe into the public library system, after all.

Don’t forget you can like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!

Libraries: quiet, calm and relaxing? My earliest memory is of a library that was dramatic, daunting and dangerous. Daughter of an academic, I was a regular visitor to the library at the University of Essex. How I dreaded our library visits, anxious at the very thought of what lay inside. I did however love visiting other parts of the University; being of the plate-glass variety, the campus was a four-year old’s delight. I was young enough to skillfully perform various acrobatics in public (spinning and cartwheels mostly) whilst staring at my wonderful reflection in the huge glass-walled buildings, blissfully unaware of anyone but myself. Then, there was the fountain! Even at at the age of four, the physics of this huge contraption fascinated me: a large metal box at the top of the fountain (somehow) filled with water and then tipped its contents below, filling a range of smaller boxes, creating a cacophony of resounding splashes. How the top box filled with water, again and again, I still haven’t resolved (but I’m pretty sure that my four year old mind has distorted the image and there is a perfectly rational explanation for this seeming freak of physics). Memories of that fountain have persisted; when reading the opening scenes of The Duchess of Malfi, years later, my mental picture of Webster’s fountain was not early sixteenth century Italianate but, somewhat annoyingly, a1960s metal construction. As a child, however, I distinctly remember that the excitement of seeing (and hearing) the fountain made up for the dread of the library visits….

My experiences at the University of Essex did put me off visiting libraries for quite a few years (hence my intimate knowledge of second-hand bookshops in the various locations I have lived). I do, however, have very fond memories of a bitter-sweet experience in the library at Gospel Oak, London. This visit was with my two year old son. About twenty young children were sat neatly on the mottled carpet of the children’s section; a (what I presumed to be) teacher was sat in the middle, wedged between two fantastically high columns of books. As we approached, my son’s eyes lit-up and he ran over to the imperious woman in the centre of the circle, jumped on her lap and waited patiently for the story to begin. Bemused (but not letting this interfere with her tight-lipped demeanour) the woman sat and stared straight ahead, obviously waiting for someone to come and remove the offending object. I took my time: partly because I did not view my son’s enthusiasm as offensive but mainly because my legs were severely crossed. Once my laughter was under control I went and retrieved my son and apologised but did not get a response. What a pity that a woman surrounded by books and young children (and sat on by one enthusiast) could not humour herself : a word, a smile would have sufficed.

It was during my years as a secondary school teacher that I was more acutely reminded of my early fear of libraries. I would often take groups to the school library and noted on several occasions the frighteningly high percentage of children who were ill at ease in this situation. Choosing a book was a pressure not a joy. One girl, I remember, spent twenty minutes pacing up and down, looking at the shelves with panic in her eyes. I offered help several times but she refused. She eventually chose a book and sat down with it, looked at the cover for two minutes and then put it back and started the next round of pacing the shelves. This, unfortunately, was not an uncommon occurrence.

Books, however, were not what had scared me in my earliest experience of a library. What had scared me? It was the huge, rotating metal contraption at the back of the building. The fear would set in from the moment I stepped through the glass doors at the front of the library. Row upon row of books were daunting but exciting to my four year old self; it wasn’t the towers of books that made me quake in my little shoes. It was the lift up to the first floor (and we always had to go to the first floor). The lift that involved taking a leap of faith to get on and off it. I have since found out that these lifts are known as paternosters: moving lifts on a loop with open compartments that you have to jump on to when the bottom of the lift meets the floor of the building. A wrong move or a misjudged floor level could result in horrible injury and disfigurement (I had a lively imagination). What happened if you stayed on the lift and didn’t manage to jump off before the lift rotated at the top of the loop? This was my main concern. Fortunately I never found out but Wikipedia reliably informs that five people were killed in paternosters between 1970 and 1993; perhaps my childhood fears were well grounded (sorry about the pun).

I am pleased to say that this early associative fear didn’t result in a life-long phobia of books. In fact, I am currently running GIR groups in two Devon libraries for people living with dementia and their carers. Several attending these sessions claimed early on not to be “poem people” and their initial apprehension immediately reminded me of my early fear of libraries. These same people are now eagerly coming each week because, as one woman said,

“I’ve never read poetry before, this has made me think differently”

and another replied,

“me too but I actually really like this”.

For many people, picking up a book or coming to a GIR session has certainly been a leap of faith. Working in libraries is now the high point of my week (something I never thought I would say); although I would like to point out that there is not a paternoster in sight, just lively, interesting people and rows and rows of beautiful books.