Booking Through Thursday

This week's BTT:

"What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?"

I lived in Tanzania until I was eleven so didn't really have access to a municipal library as such during that stage of my life. The only library I can remember visiting was when I stayed with my Grandparents, who also lived in Tanzania at that point, and Granny would take us to the library at the school she taught in. The choice of books was pretty limited but it was very, very much appreciated and a welcome break from reading the dated books my aunts and uncles had left behind as they moved out! The Bobbsey Twins, anyone?

Granny would also arrange for us to visit her friends houses and use their bookshelves as informal libraries - and I still remember my horror when I accidentally ripped a page in one. To make up for the lack of book access, my mother used to buy books from the only second-hand bookshop in Dar Es Salaam and ration them out to me to make them last. She used to hide them around the house, generally too high up to reach, so that if I rooted them out I couldn't actually get to them. I'm pretty sure I've still got some of those books boxed up in my attic and it'd be fun to dig them out again.

I was also generally allowed to choose a handful of my own books when we returned to the UK on leave and would always ensure that they were either very fat or omnibus editions to make the most of the opportunity! I wonder if this experience of not being able to get my hands on books has contributed to my "need" to own far too many books as an adult... Quite possibly.

As a teenager the library was more of a place to pretend to revise in whilst really peeking at BOYS from behind my under-used text books. I should explain that I attended an all-girl school so this was quite exciting. My University Library was situated all too near a nice pub so it was more of a meeting point for like-minded people who were full of good intentions but with no real application.

In 1994 Norwich library caught on fire and was gutted so I never learned to rely on it as a source of reading material post-Uni when I was skint enough to have done so. It's since been rebuilt and now forms part of The Forum building and I do use it occasionally however not as much as I should! Perhaps I'll pop in today and borrow some books from my "to buy" list in honour of this post.

I clearly should have been a...

...librarian!

When I lived at home, and my collection of books was significantly smaller than it is these days, they were always neatly categorised by genre and then sorted alphabetically. I have a secret ambition to do this as a grown up but we're clearly going to need a bigger house! I'd forgotten that there were a couple of additional steps I'd taken towards freakish organisation... This is where it gets a bit embarrassing.I've no idea how old I was when I made my own library cards for the books and I'd actually forgotten totally that I had. Given that the book is Enid Blyton's The Land of Far Beyond and that the handwriting is a bit on the careful side, I'd guess I was fairly young. I hope I was anyway! My mother and sister "kindly" provided the evidence which I have photographed for your viewing pleasure. Seeing this reminded me that I made borrowing envelopes for my family members and if anyone wanted to read one of my books then the card was assigned to their slot. Dear, dear me. I clearly had trust issues.
Seeing this book again triggered the memory that when I was in my teens I set up a card carousel with an index card for each author, again sorted alphabetically, with all the books I owned by them neatly listed. The picture above is not of mine but if I find it, I will be sure to share! I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to do this as I knew exactly what books by each author I had in my collection but I suspect I was very taken by the library's card file index. I wonder if other libraries still have those.

I was laughing again at my book issuing cards (why on earth did I use a biro to mark the lines on paper that's already lined??) but have just realised that I'm not actually cured of this obsession. You see, I recently asked Mr B if it was a bit odd that I wanted a barcode scanner so I could properly catalogue my collection. He felt it had shades of OCD but then what does he know?

Dear me - there's clearly no hope!

Love Your Library

I meant to write about a trip I made to my local library a few days ago. Check out my new tote bag that I ended up buying there. For a bargain £1.20 too - although my £10 note did cause chaos... I needed it as I "accidentally" borrowed six books on a visit that was supposed to be only to look up a mushroom field guide. We've got some mushrooms sprouting in bark chippings that I am pretty sure are morel mushrooms but I want to be quite, quite sure not just pretty sure! Oh dear - I now realise that I forgot to look that up but as they have all collapsed in the heat that's OK.

The council are running a Love Your Library campaign and it must be doing something as Norwich has the busiest public library in the country. Go us.

Aaaaanyway - back to my library trip. In an unheard of event, I managed to borrow two full series of books* from the SFF section. This never happens as usually they're all there except the first book in a trilogy or the middle volume has a status of On Shelf every time I check but is nowhere to be found. I do love how I can check what's in, reserve copies and renew my books online. I've no idea if other libraries networks have this service but I am very glad that mine does!

*Innocent Mage & Awakened Mage by Karen Miller and the Age of Unreason series by Greg Keyes.