Life in the library

Chris Paling’s book Reading Allowed is about his life working in a local library in the South of England. It’s a series of anecdotes and vignettes about the users of the service in much the same way as Shaun Bythell writes about the customers of his second-hand bookshop (see review here).

A library is one of the few remaining public spaces that is warm and which can be accessed by anyone without needing to pay anything. This means that it attracts people in search of a daily sanctuary as well as those wanting to borrow books or use the computers. The library staff get to know the regular users and obviously there are some people who cause problems for the staff and/or other users.

This book is not really about the books that people borrow or what the library holds but mostly about the people who come through the doors. Many of them are lovely and cause no problems but there is the odd fight, some people are abusive and others are very vulnerable. The author is kind in his depiction of the users and obviously sad that many of them cannot or will not access the help they so badly need.

At times this book is amusing, as we share the author’s delight in the quirks of the users of the library. At other times the book is sad as it shares the stories of those who find life difficult for whatever reason. The author shares his frustration at the way that some people behave and his view that libraries are a necessary social service. This is an interesting and often amusing read about what it’s really like to work in a library today.