Local teenager Anna Triesman on her love of libraries
For as long as I can recall, my comfort places have been libraries. Whenever the world seems too much, I seek one out in order to float, untethered, in the endless expanse of collective human thought and experience which words and pictures can convey. Eventually, having read enough to realise that my own concerns are trivial or easily solved, I can allow myself to drift back down to the now modest-seeming corner of the universe in which I was born: Primrose Hill.
My first memory of time spent in a library comes from so long ago that all I recall is a blur of shapes, textures and colours that must have been the well-stocked children’s section of Primrose Hill Community Library. Here, crawling between the brightly coloured carpet and whimsical reading seats, a much younger me discovered the shelves of sensory board books: the ones with flaps and knobs to turn and bits of shiny foil. I realised that the library offered a treasure trove far beyond my favourite books from home: a storehouse I could plunder for the rest of my life.
The Montessori school of my nursery years taught me, earlier than many, how to really read. I would spend hours tracing the curves of sandpaper letters, repeating their sounds out loud until I could translate long and once-confusing letter sequences into spoken words. At the age of about four, I read a whole picture book at home for the first time; I ran downstairs to my parents on my stubby pre-schooler legs shouting “I’m reading! I’m reading!” They knew before I did that this raw enthusiasm for the written word would never fade.
Primary school is often one of the most stressful and terrifying stages of life, although people try to convince you it’s the easiest. As a young, nerdy girl with undiagnosed autism in a school system I couldn’t handle any more than it could handle me, I always tried to sneak off into the book corner that nobody else seemed to use, devouring anything that interested me and plenty that didn’t. I never understood why every classroom had a delectable mini library that was off limits in both lesson times and break times. What was the purpose of all those books if nobody was allowed to read them? Were they just there to mock us? To provide a temptation we couldn’t resist, as an excuse to get us into trouble? And accessing the main school library was hardly easier. I would jump up and down with excitement whenever my class had a scheduled library visit.
Once it was time to visit secondary schools in order to decide which one to go to, the quality of the libraries was the only thing I remember. I fell madly in love with the Marylebone library the second I saw it: all those books on complex topics like philosophy and design history, and plenty of novels I had never heard of before. It was a breath of fresh air after the stifling inadequacy of my primary school library, offering only picture books and over-simplified non-fiction which taught me nothing I didn’t already know.
Later, as part of the school’s year 9 award, I started volunteering at the St Marylebone Library whenever I had a free break or lunchtime. I reshelved books, made displays and shared recommendations in the comforting ambience of the library’s eccentric fairy lights. What a contrast to the fluorescent lights and stressful lessons of the school routine.
As I finish writing this, I have just finished a week’s work experience at Swiss Cottage Library, another of Camden’s wonderful public libraries. Working there was a joy beyond measure, whether I was reordering old books (and sneaking the occasional read) in the dusty and mysterious basement reserve section, helping people out at the information desk or munching on cake at an unexpected office party. There I absorbed all that being a librarian could entail, and I now hope to volunteer part-time at my local Primrose Hill Community Library when I’m old enough.
It was through the local library that I discovered Lemony Snicket’s wonderful and offbeat book series A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series featuring libraries of all varieties which form a thread that holds the stories immaculately together. As I reflect on the series again, I realise how libraries have been central to my past and, if I am lucky, they will go on to shape my future.
