Day 29: Richmond Reference Library - Password: libraries #30days30libraries

I don't know why but I have a weird worry that I won't be welcomed in a reference library, that I might feel out of place in one perhaps.On my penultimate day of the month, I learn that this is absolute rubbish.I am sitting in Richmond Reference Library, in a wood-panelled room, next to the window from which I can see the river. When the library assistant asked me, when I walked in, if I was okay, I was worried at first that she might tell me that the library was closing soon. Or, what on earth did I think I was doing here? In a reference library?I told her that I'd just came to look around, that it was my first time here."I'd recommend visiting our Quiet Study Area," she told me straightaway. "It's quite an impressive room, and there's a lovely view of the river."She's not wrong.So often I have felt, as I have explored new libraries that I'm discovering a secret. A local's tip. A precious, unexplored part of the land.And who has the password?We all do.

Day 11: Richmond Library - I like that it's isolated #30days30libraries

Having raced across London, ducking past festival-going crowds, Saturday shoppers and lots of people laid down with plastic bags of picnics, my journey to Richmond Library had been a little fraught.I rushed through the open doors of the library, feeling waves of relief that I'd made it there before it'd closed.I was in.I knew what I had to do.I had to get started and begin talking to people. I needed to listen.I wanted to take some photos, and get a feel for the place.I'd left my husband waiting outside for me, sitting on a patch of grass, and had promised him that I wouldn't be 'too long.'But I just couldn't do it.As though in a trance, I took a book from the shelf - Malorie Blackman's 'Boys Don't Cry' - I can't believe that I haven't read it before now - and sank down into one of the sofas.I began to read.The library had cast a spell over me.I could almost hear its voice ...You will take a book.You will find a seat.You will read. There was a young man sitting opposite me - also sunk, into book, and sofa. Lost in another world.His name was Aaron."I *should* be coming here to work," he said with a wry smile. "I'm on an Access course at Richmond College doing Literature, Law and History and I come here often to work. But also to take breaks too."He smiled again and proffered his book.A Terry Pratchett title."I love Terry Pratchett. I read him all the time.I didn't used to come here but now I can't stop.It's quiet.And I like that it's isolated from everything else."Like me, Aaron hadn't been able to stop himself from entering into the world of a book, shuttering down the noise of the outside.And like me, he was in exactly the right place to do it.