‘Your ticket to a new world’: a love letter to the public library

As a child, I had 16 library tickets. As well as the four to which I was entitled – bright yellow cardboard pockets with my name and address hand-written on the front – I had, over time, taken possession of those allotted to my mother, my father and my brother.

Saturday mornings were spent browsing the shelves of the local library, then struggling home, arms piled high with more books than I could comfortably carry.

The library in question was in Coleraine, Co Derry, a hexagonal 1960s building of glass and concrete, built over three levels at the bottom of a street of otherwise unremarkable shops and offices. At best, it was regarded as rather unusual; at worst, as a bit of an eyesore. So when the North’s Department of the Environment decided to list the library, the reaction was surprising.

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Falls Road Library, Belfast: “I remember the poet Ciaran Carson saying that once he’d exhausted the Falls Road library’s collection of Biggles books, he turned to the library on the Shankill Road, and so did I,” says Bookworm author Patricia Craig

“It actually created controversy,” explains Manus Deery, principal conservation architect with the Department of the Environment’s historic environment division. “People are normally quite positive about listings, but some wanted to know why on earth we had listed it.

“The outside has been painted this horrible green colour which doesn’t do it any justice, but inside you have the book stacks aligned with strips of window which run the whole way around and then this great double height space. You see this in some of the world’s best libraries, in the British Library, which has a beautiful reading dome, and its equivalent in Dublin, which has half a reading dome.

“Architecturally it’s the most luxurious thing you can do, to have people walk in and see this space. It’s almost as if you’re celebrating the ritual of reading and books in this place which is free and is available to all.”

Inside, library assistant Dawn Ferguson agrees. “The thing I love about this building and the thing a lot of customers mention to me is the layout. It’s light, it’s airy, it’s quirky, and you get the feel of space as soon as you walk in. When it was built, it was on the cusp of something new. It was ahead of its time, and nobody here had seen anything like it.”

Coleraine is one of just over 10 libraries in the North to have listed status – the equivalent of protected status in the rest of Ireland. It means that the building’s special architectural and historical significance must be taken into consideration when planning any alterations.

Other libraries which have been awarded listed status include those on the Falls Road and the Shankill Road in Belfast, as well as the city’s Central Library and Ireland’s last surviving subscription library, the Linen Hall.

Author and academic Patricia Craig wrote her recent memoir, Bookworm, as a tribute to the libraries of her youth. Introduced to the Donegall Road library as a six-year-old by her mother, Craig soon expanded beyond its collection, travelling across 1940s and ’50s Belfast by bus to seek out other branches.

“I remember the poet Ciaran Carson saying that once he’d exhausted the Falls Road library’s collection of Biggles books, he turned to the library on the Shankill Road, and so did I. I was able to go all the way out to Ligoniel by myself on the bus, and found a nice library there which I discovered myself.

“There was no sectarian element attached to them. It didn’t matter where you were from, you could still go in and borrow books. I loved that element of serendipity, that you could put your hand on a book and it could become an addiction for the rest of your life.”

Trisha Ward, who is now assistant director with Libraries NI, describes herself as “a Brooke Park girl” in reference to the library she used as a child inside a former orphanage in the grounds of a Derry park.

“It was the 1970s and there was an army installation there which you had to pass to get to the library, which was really old and musty with wooden floors that echoed when you walked. I think initially my father had to pay for my library card and it was really precious. You were given to understand that this was your ticket to a new world.”

Now based in Derry’s Central Library, Ward has seen libraries change from a place where “every time I walked in the door I could feel the eyes of the woman at the desk looking at me” to what she describes as “a social space that’s busy and buzzy”.

The ubiquitous desk is gone, replaced by a self-service point, and the library runs a full programme of activities from Rhythm and Rhyme storytelling for pre-school children to Knit and Natter groups, iPad classes and job clubs.

“Over the last three years we’ve had extensive cuts, and we’ve had to reduce opening hours,” acknowledges Ward. “It means you do have to prioritise. What we’ve tried to do is move some services online, but do more activities and offer more with the same number of staff we’ve always had.

“I think it’s about going back to the central purpose of a library. If it’s just a place where you can get books, well, you can get those books cheaply online. A library has always been about imparting knowledge, and it grew from the whole idea of the Carnegie Libraries which were founded on the idea of social justice and addressing inequalities in society.

“Derry Central Library recently won an award for the work we’ve done with people suffering from dementia. We run job clubs, we run a mental health initiative and Macmillan Cancer have an information point here.

“The numbers of books borrowed from the shelf is going down, but this has almost plateaued after a steep drop for about 10-15 years. What we are seeing now is visitor numbers going up and IT use going up.”

Back in Coleraine, library assistants Ferguson and Karen Burr stress that the key to libraries’ future success is to keep adapting.

“There are overlaps now between libraries and community centres,” says Burr. “Maybe in a way we’re all grabbing the same audience because libraries have had to reinvent themselves. I could see things like creative labs, and reading groups that you don’t have to be physically here in the building to take part in.

“I also think that because we are doing more online we don’t interact as much, so maybe we could see that coming full circle and actually have more people coming into the library and joining groups.

“You see that already with our self-service machines,” says Ferguson. “A lot of people will still come to us and ask questions, and it’s because they like a chat. Maybe they don’t see a lot of other people during the day, so they like to come in at a certain time for their books and for their conversation. All we need now is a nice cafe.”

As I leave, books tucked under my arm, I am once again eight years old, hurrying home with a pile of plastic-backed treasures to be opened and savoured. The librarian calls after me: “Don’t forget to tell your mother I was asking for her.”

Freya McClements is a writer and arts journalist