Allie Morgan - The Librarian: The Library Saved Her. Now She Wants To Save The Library

Allie Morgan is 29-year-old librarian who lives in Scotland. She runs a secret Twitter account where she tweets about the role of libraries in community life.

To Mum, Dad, Hairy, my furry feline supervisors and the Twittering friends whove been there from the beginning.

This is for you.

The events described in this book are based on the experiences and recollections of the author. To preserve confidentiality and the privacy of colleagues, names and other identifying features have been changed. The anecdotes described are not based on any specific individual but rather a selection of composite characters drawing on the various experiences of the author during her time working in various libraries. Any similarities between people or places are purely coincidental.

The day I had my interview for my library position was the day I decided that I shouldnt die. That is, I probably shouldnt die soon. Not if I could help it.

The next day, when I was informed that my interview had been unsuccessful and that I would not be working in the library, I changed my mind about that.

Id already changed my mind more times than I can count over the previous month but this felt solid, like a plan. I have always liked a good plan. The fact that my mind hadnt changed on the subject in at least twelve hours also added to a sense of permanence. Totality. Finality.

It wasnt that I wanted to die. In fact, I really didnt like the idea of dying at all. It was just and this all made perfectly logistical sense, I reminded myself that I had a moral obligation to do so. I had considered merely running away, somehow extricating myself from the ever-dwindling number of bonds and ties I had to other people and things. If I could have made a clean cut from everything, I would have. Perhaps Id go to France. France seemed nice.

The problem was that it was never really that simple. People would worry when I left and how would I even get away? I couldnt drive. Id have to use public transport, which could be tracked, as could whatever method of payment I used and, frankly, my bank account had seen better days. If I didnt show up to my next Community Mental Health Team meeting, someone might ask questions, or at least send another stern letter about wasting precious NHS resources.

No, there was really no other option when it came down to it. I would die, a few people would mourn my husband, my parents, my brother, perhaps some more distant relatives and then life would go on without me. The going on was the key part.

I was well aware that I had a pair of goblins living in my head. In fact, I regularly regarded myself as one third, larger goblin; a mega-goblin, if you will. I had known the first goblin for most of my life. His name was Depression. The second was a trickier, stealthy beast. Only recently had I learned that his name was Trauma and that hed been hitchhiking in my skull since I and presumably my skull were around twelve years old.

I still had trouble separating the goblins from my own inner voice and it would later transpire that the Gruesome Twosome had been the ones to ignite and stoke the fire of this latest plan. I had always prided myself on being logical, cynical and intellectual. They knew that because they knew me, perhaps better than I knew myself at that point.

Ultimately the goblins had reminded me that every person either makes the lives of others better or worse and, sadly, I was in the latter camp. Just a sad fact. No point in getting upset about it.

Take my poor husband, for example. He was having to support me financially and emotionally now that Id become too sick to work. (Or too lazy? the goblins would often ponder aloud.) My parents, whod worked so hard to bring me up and provide me with the opportunity to go to university, must be so terribly disappointed by this flunked-out, unemployed, mentally unstable thing Id become. Of course, theyd never say that out loud but it was only logical, wasnt it?

Therefore, the morally correct thing to do nay, the obligation I had was to remove myself from those peoples lives and in doing so release them from the burden of my disappointing existence.

I was about to carry on to Phase 2 aka The Planning of the Deed when my phone rang again.

The library.

Well, it couldnt be much worse, could it? Perhaps Id left something behind, or accidentally lifted a document that wasnt meant for me. How embarrassing.

Hello? Is that Allie?

I nodded as I said yes. I still nod when I agree with anything on the phone.

change of circumstances; wed like to offer you the position after all.

What? I mean, sorry. Bad reception. Could you please repeat that?

Of course. Wed like to offer you the position at the library. Can you start next week?

I decided, at that moment, that maybe I could delay Phase 2. After all, Id actually achieved something today, even if by some odd twist of fate. At the very least, I could wait until my next failure (perhaps Id burn the library down, or catch my tie in the photocopier and choke to death) before moving on to the next phase.

Uh. Yes. Yes, I can.

If you picked this book up hoping to become a librarian yourself, Im afraid to say theres no One Right Path into libraries. We all come to this profession from different angles and quite often much of it is down to chance.

Chance, though, is actually more reliable than youd expect. It takes a certain kind of person to be a librarian and the mere fact that youre reading this now raises the odds of you being just that kind of person.

You dont have to be mad to work here but you do have to be a little bit mad about what you do. It helps to be a little bit mad about books, too.

*

I was a blessed child. For most of my early life, I had access to a huge (and, at the time, seemingly endless) local library in the heart of my hometown. Some of my fondest memories take place amongst the towering stacks.

The library of my youth would nowadays be known as a cluster hub or something equally dry and corporate, but as a child I simply knew it as The Big Library. What would go unsaid but always truly believed was that The Big Library was Magic. Not the kind of fairy-tale magic as portrayed in Disney films but the old kind of Magic: Magic with a capital M, more suited to Grimms fairy tales and folklore shared in hushed voices on concrete playgrounds the world over.

The Big Library was a liminal space: a place between mundane reality (with all of its school uniforms and times tables and PE kit and lunchboxes) and something else, something wilder. It was a place where every tome contained a universe. One only needed to find a quiet spot (of which there were, blessedly, many) and you could be a pirate, a wizard, a dragon-tamer, a vampire and, later, a criminal detective, a street-smart forensic psychologist or a simple everyman caught up in a conspiracy that spanned continents or worlds.

The library was also a labyrinth. The shelf stacks stretched far beyond the reach of a bookish child like me. Once Id graduated from the childrens section, the entire building beckoned.