Libraries and reading groups

It’s time to begin to foreground what readers have to say about libraries and especially their reading groups. The people we’ve interviewed have provided wonderful accounts of the rich and varied ways in which libraries can benefit our lives. We’re in the process of making more of the audio recordings available, but with our interests in reading it also seems pertinent to read, as well as listen to, what people have to say. First stop, is an extract from Jane’s interview about her library group (which was somewhat buried in the previous post):

• Because I don’t live with somebody, and I don’t have a partner, and even when I did live with somebody, he wasn’t a reader… everything I read, I don’t discuss it with anybody. And when I was really lonely in my teens, I would read and read and read and read… I would have dreams where I was talking, I was talking about books and talking about what I was reading, and I just was so, starved of anybody to discuss what I was reading, or comment on it, or, so, I think reading for me has become just a very, very solitary thing, which is why the book group amuses me immensely. I love it, I just love it…  I’ve palled up with a couple of the people, just in a quiet way, but that’s a sort of nice way of meeting people, and you kind of, you listen to what they’ve got to say about the books, and I just think it’s really, a really nice thing to do… and people are very caring. There’s an elderly lady who’s very ill, and people are very very caring, and trying to see if they can get her in the car to get her to come, and they always make sure she’s got the book, and people obviously help each other…
• I’d fight on the barricades to keep the libraries open, but there’s rumours they’re going to knock that one down… Libraries are now the only free places that people can go, aren’t they. I mean where else can you go? You can’t go anywhere else that’s free. Nowhere. Shopping malls. That’s all… The main Battersea library has got the most beautiful reference library, and now, at this time of year, every – with the lovely old desks – it is chock-a-block with students revising… I think people should know that, that young people, who haven’t got room to study in their flats, I mean it is absolutely packed at this time of year.

Anonymous:

• [Asked about her reading group:] It kind of reignited my interest in reading, because I hadn’t really read properly apart from magazines and stuff for maybe years… I love, I just love the bond that we have… and I think that it would be hard to leave, I think we still enjoy reading, so we enjoy it all. That’s something that’s important for me anyway, and that’s my date, you know… I have to be there regardless, unless I’m going on holiday or something, I’ve got to be there.

Audrey Bishop

• Though I go to the library now, I never went to the library before I joined the reading group, not very often anyway… I was at work full-time, so for a long time I didn’t go anywhere very much. And as I say, until I was 74 I never went to the cinema on my own. I never went anywhere on my own. And it’s actually the knitting group [also at the library] and the reading group have made such a difference to me. I’ve made friends with people.

For the full interview with Audrey click the following link (the extract is around 1 hour 27 minutes into the first interview): www.roehampton.ac.uk/research-centres/memories-of-fiction/archive/audrey/

We’re in the process of tidying up and making more interviews available online.

We will continue to bring together experiences and memories of libraries, not least for a discussion at Wandsworth Heritage Festival in late May or early June which is in currently being organised. More soon!