ALIA West

June 2002

A week in the life of a librarian

or
What I did for Australian Library Week

By Kim Grace

What a week...

It began with breakfast with author Anna Jacobs, and ended with morning tea with Elle (the Body) Echidna. In between these two events the City of Bayswater Library and Information Service offered an absolute plethora (I always wanted to use that word!) of activities for the young, the young-at-heart, and the just plain curious.

For example, how does a session on Feng Shui in the tool shed, or learning how to make bright green slime appeal to you? Yes, bright green slime, and yellow, and blue, and red. Perhaps you might have preferred a trip around the World in 60 minutes, compliments of the Internet, or an hour discovering the secrets of drawing Bart Simpson, Pikachu and slightly wobbly circles. In fact, the kids were well catered for, with regular story times at all three libraries, an evening bedtime story sojourn complete with pyjamas, and a visit from Two Tall Tale Tellers. OK, they weren't that tall, but they could certainly spin a tale or two.

For those slightly longer in the tooth there were celebrity librarians to issue your books, page counting competitions, morning and afternoon teas, free pizza, visits by the Positive Ageing Foundation and the up-and-coming band, Fourth Floor Collapse, to talk about the highs and lows of rock and roll. And no, I don't know how they came up with that name. We had one-on-one Internet sessions with pre-Australian Library Week technophobes who are now happily using expressions like "Take me to cyber-surfer city, dude" and "Your URL or mine, baby?" We had a book sale that scared the pants off Amazon.com and saw people come all the way from Moora to purchase our old and weary Marbles Monthly magazines. All right, maybe they were visiting relatives in Perth as well, but you can see what I mean. It was huge! Big.

Would you believe largish?

Yes, by the end of the week a lot of happy, satisfied and slightly more educated people had been in and out the doors of our libraries, and that was just the staff! Australian Library Week was an opportunity to say, "thank you for using our service, and please come again". It was a time to celebrate public libraries and what they mean to the community.

Imagine a community without these crucibles of the soul; Without a place to sit for hours in a warm spot with a magazine full of juicy goss; Without a place where the staff treat you like a friend and know when your next dental appointment is, even if you don't; Without a place where you can borrow a book, CD, cassette, video, comic, newspaper, or 60 cents for the bus fare; Without a place where you can e-mail a friend, type out your resume, have a conversation with a total stranger, search for a place called Popokabaka, and keep out of the rain for a couple of hours without being asked to "move on"; Without a place where you can meet famous authors, pat small smelly furry Australians (no, I am not referring to other patrons!), draw imperfect circles, learn how to find harmony by rearranging your cutlery, gasbag with a guitarist, or listen to librarians making complete twits of themselves as they attempt to sound like gorillas, aeroplanes and wailing sirens. And all for free.

What a week it was. Sort of makes you feel proud to be a part of libraries, part of the celebration. Maybe we should do it again next year.

But first I need a holiday.