Will the baby like libraries?

This is a Book Week guest post from Adele at Circus Queen. Adele is expecting her first baby and her post explores her experience of libraries and her hopes for her baby’s own library journey.

My husband doesn’t really get my thing with libraries. I’ve tried
explaining it in terms he might agree with – community, space, quiet – but
really, he’d just prefer to own the books he’s reading.

I, on the hand, prefer the idea of communal property, believing that most
good things are worth sharing. Even when I’ve bought books in the past,
I’ve usually donated them to a library after reading.

I’ve started holding on to my finds in recent times, though. Otherwise our
shelves would be all blood, battle and fantasy, which is fine except that
it doesn’t reflect much of what I read.

Of course, my library thing is about more than merely sharing books. I’ve
changed countries, boyfriends, career-paths and ideas about God but the
slow-burn love affair with libraries has remained a constant.

There’s something about the space itself that is almost sacred. There’s
something in the silent pursuit of knowledge that’s full of possibility,
of power. I’m not just being a drama queen. I really do mean this.

My most expansive thoughts have hit me in libraries. When researching in
the British Library for my Masters dissertation, I had a moment between
pages when I remembered how to daydream.

It began with imagining bumping into Stephen Fry at the BL and progressed
to inventing sexual liaisons between people sitting opposite each other in
the reading room. Eventually, it got to a place where I was able to think
in abstract terms about my life and role I was playing in it.

Yes, it was a bit of naughty procrastination. But it was also a time when
I desperately needed somewhere to get away from the tyranny of other
things, especially of other people.

I was depressed and being busy just wasn’t slapping me out of it.
Distractions were preventing me from thinking things through in a way that
would help me identify what I needed to do to get well.

For me, for that time, being alone with my thoughts in a room full of
people alone with theirs was what I needed. I’d return my books at the end
of the day, often feeling stronger.

I still love working in libraries. In fact, I began writing this post in
Bristol Central Library. I always find that the more time I spend there,
the more connected I feel with the people around me, through our joint
ownership of this place and our common book lust.

In fact, I’ll probably out-geek myself by saying this, but I think
libraries are life-affirming. I’ve had many a session where I’ve left
feeling literally empowered by reading amongst others, like I’m even more
a part of the human race.

It saddens me that more people don’t take hold of the
being-alone-yet-being-together that reading a book in a library offers.
It’s not like you have to pay anything for it.

It’s heartbreaking that rather than promoting libraries, councils feel
it’s wiser to reduce their staff or close them down.

I can’t help but wonder how affected my child is going to be by how
unfashionable libraries have become.

I hope she’ll look forward to Saturday trips to the library like I did.
But maybe she’ll ask to own her books so she can be like Daddy.

You can find Adele at Circus Queen (you should check out her recent post about life being too short to read only what you should read) and on Twitter.