For Librarian Day, a thank you to the people who put the right books into our hands

Tomorrow, April 16, is National Librarian Day, and it seems only right to spend a moment appreciating librarians and libraries, because I have a distinct fondness for both.

I am currently reading Jo Walton’s Among Others, and have discovered that, aside from the rather significant difference that one of us grew up in the Welsh countryside and the other in the Western Australian countryside, Walton and I appear to have had remarkably similar childhoods.

We both grew up essentially alone, and gained most of our wisdom from books.

Among Others is reportedly a mildly disguised memoir, and as I read it I keep finding little moments that feel unexpectedly familiar. I do not know whether Walton’s access to libraries was any better than mine, but for most of my childhood, I had none.

That changed when I was twelve and moved to a larger coastal town. Suddenly, I had access to two libraries at once: my high school library, and the town’s single public library.

And in those libraries, I discovered science fiction.

Dusty Anthologies and New Worlds

It began with the dusty anthologies of classic science fiction: collections of stories that had originally appeared in even dustier magazines years before. I became instantly obsessed.

Then my English teacher handed me The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.

I still remember the feeling of reading it for the first time: that dizzying sense that books could do more than tell a story. They could stretch your mind. They could make you look at the world differently.

When I told the librarian at the town library how much I had loved it, she immediately directed me to the shelves holding the rest of Wyndham’s books, and then to his British contemporaries. For years afterward, I happily rolled around in thoughtful, unsettling, mind-expanding British science fiction.

The Goodreads of My Generation

The high school librarians, unfortunately, were perpetually harried and not especially enthusiastic about answering the endless stream of questions from an eager thirteen-year-old who had already worked through the meagre science fiction shelf.

The town librarians were different.

They always had something to recommend.

When I had reached the borrowing limit of three books a week, they quietly let me take home one extra, because they knew perfectly well that three books simply would not last me until the next visit.

If I said, “I want something like Heinlein’s Starship Troopers,” they would think for a moment, then give me an author’s name and point me toward the correct shelf in the stacks.

They were the Goodreads of my generation, only better.

Algorithms can suggest books that other people enjoyed. Librarians can see the shape of your reading tastes before you can. They can hear what you are not quite saying. They know that if you loved one book for a particular reason, there is another waiting for you somewhere nearby.

Most of my still-favourite science fiction authors were discovered because of those weekly visits to the town library.

Keeper Copies

Eventually, of course, I graduated from high school, got a job, and for the first time could buy my own books. I began building shelves of keeper copies, and my visits to the library slowly diminished.

These days, when I borrow from my local library, I tend to interact with it through the online catalogue and digital holds system. I still use the library, but I rarely speak to librarians anymore.

I miss that a little.

Because while I still love books, and still discover new ones, there was something special about standing at a desk and saying, “I’ve just finished this. What should I read next?”

And having someone know exactly the right answer.

Do you have a favourite librarian who influenced your reading life? Share your story in the comments.

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