This is a love letter to libraries. School libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, Little Libraries that pop up in suburban streets – I love them all.
I love the look of libraries: the shelves lined with slim, irregular columns of colour; the beautiful faces of books turned out in full view; the hanging artworks; the curated, themed displays.
I love the feel of them: the openness; the high ceilings; the cushioned seats that invite us all to stay, to read, to think. I love the tall, freestanding shelves that surround me with books, and hide me from the rest of the world.
I love the outreach of libraries: the community groups, the children’s programmes, the computer and internet access. I love the reading advice so gladly shared, and the obvious care shown both for books and for people.
Our primary school library felt to me like a world entirely of its own, opened to us once a week for a short and precious time. We could wander freely there, choosing from a treasure trove of volumes, stepping further out of school and into any one of many wider worlds.
We learnt the system of call numbers and keywords, and followed our own trains of thought through the little wooden drawers of the card catalogue. There, typewritten onto index cards, were the coded keys to new treasures.
As I got older, libraries became places of purpose. They held the substance of assignments and essays not yet written, and collections of works by authors I had newly discovered. They were respite from too much conversation, and a place to be alone with as many or as few thoughts as I wanted.
I have moved house a lot since I left home as a teenager. One of the first things I do in a new town or city is to join the local library. Whatever the upheaval, however alien I feel, when I wander the rows of books with a library card in my bag I am at home.
Tania Sickling 