Day 18: Idea Store Bow - A learning centre #30days30libraries
A few steps from the Roman Road market, you'll find the Idea Store Bow.As soon as you enter, you find a cafe and signs for different zones, including the so-called 'learning labs' which are an integral part of these spaces.
"What makes an idea store, an idea store," one of the librarians told me, "is that we are a learning centre. As well as the usual library services, we run a range of adult learning courses, as well as lots of different activities."She handed me a brochure.
There's not only English and Maths, but courses in business and cookery, fashion and textiles or foreign languages and interpreting. The courses are very competitively priced and are also offered at a concessionary price if you receive a job seekers or an employment support allowance, income support or an incapacity benefit, a pension credit or if you earn less than 21,ooo a year.If you fall in this concessionary bracket, you could get qualified in British Sign Language to Level 1, which is a course of 32 weeks, for a mere ten pounds.Or a ten weeks of 'Strictly Ballroom' classes for twenty pounds.A bicycle maintenance course for ten pounds.Upholstery for twenty-five.Digital Film-making.Guitar playing.Beginners Russian.Nail Art.Mindfulness.French Patisserie. All these skills, and more, are being learnt within these walls.
Day 17: Oadby Library - Free to join #30days30libraries
Oadby Library is stationed on a busy high street, opposite a NatWest, next to a wedding hire company.Before I even get in there, I'm once again struck by just how many services libraries offer. It's not just about books, although they will always form a library's backbone.
I stop. I listen. I look.A woman sits in a quiet corner and calls social services to ask if they can help with care for her elderly mother.A young student comes in to enquire if she can volunteer as a reading buddy for the Summer Reading programme.A librarian helps someone to save a file onto a memory stick and shows them how to forward and delete emails.Everywhere I look I see signs of learning, of support.
A mother and daughter sit, leaning against one another on a sofa, sharing a book.A student sits, writing furiously, plugged into her iPhone and her work.A little boy walks through the room, counting his steps."1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4."No one dares shush him.
Day 6: Teddington Library - Her mind can go in every direction #30days30libraries
Brenda travels down from Newcastle every month to look after her granddaughter Sadie for a couple of days and always includes a library visit in their days together.
"I come here because there's so much that Sadie can do here. There's every book that you can think of, it's such a good selection.Every time she walks in, she goes straight up to the rug and goes round it saying every animal name that she knows. (A colourful oval rug stretches across most of the floor of the children's library illustrating different animals.) Or she might use some of those little seats to make a tower and then knock them down again."Brenda and Sadie did not realise however that there was also a garden that they could explore. I only knew because someone had tweeted me about it.
It was a small paradise.
I spoke to two women taking a break from their office on one of the benches, under a tree.One of them told me: "I use this library and that was how I knew about the garden."It did feel like it was a secret space, treasured by those who knew of its existence.The other woman explained she was big library user."I used to go all the time when my daughter is small - I went to classes and that kind of thing - and now that she is eight, she uses it for her work. I've banned Google for when she researches projects because I never knew what she might find. But in the library, her mind can go in every direction. She uses the encyclopaedias and discovers things that she never would if she just went online."Her friend added: "It's a safe space too. She can wander around it. And so children can be independent."As I left Teddington Library, Sadie had begun to run races with her grandma across the expanse of lawn.Her arms were spread out to her sides, as though she had no fear of falling.