SAVE LIBRARIES

Posted on 8th December 2015

People in Lambeth, south London, are battling to save libraries from being closed, or turned into gyms with unstaffed book-corners. And they are not the only ones. So here are thirteen thank yous for librarians:

THIRTEEN THANK YOUS FOR LIBRARIANS

Thank you for the discovery that’s possible every time you unlock the library door.

Thank you for the learning and the concentration that goes on around you.

Thanks for the reading you do, so you can help others choose the reading they want.

Thank you for encouraging young people to use libraries.

Thank you for persisting in times when public attention is pulled so many ways.

Thank you for keeping at it, though libraries are always among the first targets for cuts.

Thanks for the smell of your libraries…the smell of books that are alive.

Thanks for the noise in your libraries. They were never silent. And a library at work is one of the loveliest human sounds.

Thank you for the excitement of arriving at the library and seeing the possibilities spread out, waiting.

Thank you for the spells of daydreaming you enable.

Thank you for living with the stereotype of the bespectacled, softly-spoken librarian, even though you know the truth: that a good librarian is a kind of magician!

Thank you for putting the books back at the end of the day.

Thank you for the good things your work creates which cannot be measured, or proven by statistics, or even put into words.