Why I Too Love Libraries

Posted by on Nov 13, 2014

Why I Too Love Libraries

This week Radio 6 Music is celebrating libraries, while indie band Everything Everything is hosting an arts festival in Manchester’s newly-refurbished Central Library.   So it seems the perfect time to say my piece about libraries and the debt I owe them.   At primary school aged 9 or 10 we were walked down the hill some 30 strong every week to the branch library in Keats Grove, where a kindly lady made us welcome and talked about the books and how they were arranged. Coming from a bookish family I was already a reader, and so the thing that really excited me was the catalogue. It dominated the middle of the room; tier upon tier of wooden cabinets containing draw after draw of index cards, each pointing to a particular book, all in alphabetical order.  As I knew my alphabet I realised with a thrill that I could use it to look anything up in the catalogue and find whatever I wanted! Not only that, I would always be able to do this, because (I thought) libraries would always be here. I knew I had found a ‘skill for life’. Saturdays became a regular day for visiting the library. On our little bikes my brother and I would peddle off to Arkwright Road, or to Swiss Cottage, to change our books and explore what was waiting for us on the shelves. It was a liberating and fulfilling experience. We each had our own library membership; my first autonomous official transactions were taking books out and returning them, occasionally paying a modest fine. Leaving secondary school under a cloud (don’t ask!) I was fortunate to get a job in the record library at Swiss Cottage. What treasures! The first LPs I borrowed, Shelly Manne and His Men Live at the Blackhawk Vols 1 & 2, thrilled me with their vibrant, direct sound and the intensity of the band’s performance. I felt as if I was right there in the club in San Francisco! These albums became my touchstone for live jazz recordings, and live for me still. I was able to explore everything from Duke Ellington to Cream, Albert Ayler to the Incredible String Band and more. The librarian there responded to my interest and we discussed music all the time. He even asked me to suggest what to buy for the collection, and for a while we were staunch supporters of the Impulse! label. I felt for once that my musical tastes...

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