The Library book is made up of numerous fairly short pieces of writing from different authors on the subject of libraries or in some way associated with libraries. It’s an initiative from The Reading Agency aligned for publication around National Libraries Day 2012 and with the proceeds going to various Reading Challenges.
I feel I should perhaps have borrowed it from my local library(!!), but truth to tell I bought it (well, the cause was good!). So I’d been reading it in miscellaneous gaps over the last couple of weeks.
Most of the pieces are opinion pieces and standalone works and are public-library orientated. Some pieces are extracts from longer fictional works or look at other contexts (e.g. historical) or consider other types of library as well (e.g. academic, research).
Most of the pieces are opinion pieces and standalone works and are public-library orientated. Some pieces are extracts from longer fictional works or look at other contexts (e.g. historical) or consider other types of library as well (e.g. academic, research).
Bringing Different Perspectives Together
Somehow the more contributors you bring together at times the more intriguing idea’s can be found, either alone, or by cross-referencing against other material in the same volume.
The Joy of Reading Short Pieces
The Joy of Reading Short Pieces
There are times when a couple of minutes to read a small self-contained chapter is a very beguiling thing.
The Amusement of Finding Your Own Local Library centrestage in one...
The Hardeep Singh Kohli title is called The Punk and Langside Library. So in case anyone is wondering what Langside Library looks like...
So, to some quotes...
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| Langside Library Entrance |
The Hardeep Singh Kohli title is called The Punk and Langside Library. So in case anyone is wondering what Langside Library looks like...
So, to some quotes...
As to what idea’s interested me most within 'The Library Book' or struck a chord, and from who...
Alan Bennett discusses the libraries he's frequented over life at different times for different purposes
One of my favourite chapters in the book. I specifically liked:-
"... libraries are facilities; a library has no honours board and takes no credit for what its readers go on to do..."
[i.e. that readers in libraries often go on to have august careers but we don't note or promote it the way their school would]
"... someone's working library has a particular tone..."
[i.e. that one look at a library tells you a lot about the owner, not just from the titles but the whole look of it]
"... a library needs to be handy and local; it shouldn't require an expedition..."
[i.e. no matter how brilliant and shiny that new central library is, something local is easier to get to]
Val McDermid does the same
"I read everywhere.... The adult library was awesome..."
I liked this piece a lot because it centred upon the need to read constantly and on that great conundrum - how to get access to the Adult Library when you're not old enough and have read your way merrily through most other things!
Caitlin Moran
Talking about the importance of libraries to communities and the individuals within them
"A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival..."
"... public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead... with a brain and a heart..."
My other favourites chapter is the ancient historian Tom Holland discussing the birth of the Library in ancient Mesopotamia and the famous ancient libraries that followed it.
He notes they were often under threat or destroyed even then.
No matter how big or glorious often they were assembled for very powerful rulers and thus destroyed, broken up, or appropriated when their power wanes. What we have of the writings of the times left often comes from the margins of those societies, small collections, rather than the grandest libraries in consequence.
"... the library has never existed that was not shadowed by an apprehension of its own mortality..."
"To look at a library is to know that its volumes can be burned, its shelves cleared and emptied, its walls left an empty shell. It is to feel - even in this age of digital abundance - a sense of the precariousness and the preciousness of human knowledge."
"Knowledge was power - and power was barely worth having without knowledge."
"A civilisation must be judged as well by the books it keeps in institutions far removed from the centres of power. Its very surivial, after all, may depend upon it."
Susan Hill I really like simply because she's talking about The London Library rather than a public library, a rather different subscription-based library that I've never managed to get into and always really fancied...
To finish off...
Some final quotes about the importance of libraries...
Zadie Smith
"We all learned a lot of things in Willesden Green Library, and we learned how to learn things, which is more important."
Karin Slaughter
"We need to shift our national view of libraries not as luxuries, but as necessities."
"Libraries are the backbone of our educational infrastructure..."
Alan Bennett discusses the libraries he's frequented over life at different times for different purposes
One of my favourite chapters in the book. I specifically liked:-
"... libraries are facilities; a library has no honours board and takes no credit for what its readers go on to do..."
[i.e. that readers in libraries often go on to have august careers but we don't note or promote it the way their school would]
"... someone's working library has a particular tone..."
[i.e. that one look at a library tells you a lot about the owner, not just from the titles but the whole look of it]
"... a library needs to be handy and local; it shouldn't require an expedition..."
[i.e. no matter how brilliant and shiny that new central library is, something local is easier to get to]
Val McDermid does the same
"I read everywhere.... The adult library was awesome..."
I liked this piece a lot because it centred upon the need to read constantly and on that great conundrum - how to get access to the Adult Library when you're not old enough and have read your way merrily through most other things!
Caitlin Moran
Talking about the importance of libraries to communities and the individuals within them
"A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival..."
"... public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead... with a brain and a heart..."
My other favourites chapter is the ancient historian Tom Holland discussing the birth of the Library in ancient Mesopotamia and the famous ancient libraries that followed it.
He notes they were often under threat or destroyed even then.
No matter how big or glorious often they were assembled for very powerful rulers and thus destroyed, broken up, or appropriated when their power wanes. What we have of the writings of the times left often comes from the margins of those societies, small collections, rather than the grandest libraries in consequence.
"... the library has never existed that was not shadowed by an apprehension of its own mortality..."
"To look at a library is to know that its volumes can be burned, its shelves cleared and emptied, its walls left an empty shell. It is to feel - even in this age of digital abundance - a sense of the precariousness and the preciousness of human knowledge."
"Knowledge was power - and power was barely worth having without knowledge."
"A civilisation must be judged as well by the books it keeps in institutions far removed from the centres of power. Its very surivial, after all, may depend upon it."
Susan Hill I really like simply because she's talking about The London Library rather than a public library, a rather different subscription-based library that I've never managed to get into and always really fancied...
To finish off...
Some final quotes about the importance of libraries...
Zadie Smith
"We all learned a lot of things in Willesden Green Library, and we learned how to learn things, which is more important."
Karin Slaughter
"We need to shift our national view of libraries not as luxuries, but as necessities."
"Libraries are the backbone of our educational infrastructure..."
And Langside Library from the the front on a Glasgow winter's morning...
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