We spoke to a librarian and a slighty-aggressive five-year-old book for their thoughts about ever evolving collections, existential crises, and YPRL’s Winter Book Sale raising funds for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation!
Tell us, what are some of the day-to-day maintenance collection needs?
Book: Personally, I need to be taken off the shelf from time to time for a good spine crack.
Librarian: Well, that’s a pretty good need to have. We love it when books are borrowed regularly especially since we have such a massive collection across the region…
Book: How many of us are there?
Librarian: Literally thousands upon thousands with more arriving each week. We have to fit the new books somewhere and it can be a challenge to store them sometimes!
Sounds like you should stop adding books to the collection…
Librarian: Absolutely not! It’s important to ensure the collection is relevant and current for the communities we serve. A collection that doesn’t grow or change is not ideal for anyone.
Book: I do enjoy meeting new neighbours…
Librarian: Unfortunately it means we do have to rehome or retire books from the collection so we can make room for the new and ensure the collection is being used.
How do you do that?
Book: I hear they rip books apart by Shreddy McShred Face when they’re taken off the shelf!
Librarian: I don’t know where that rumour started but it’s incorrect.
Book: There’s been some talk. That’s all I’m saying…
Librarian: Ugh. Anyway, we will do everything to give a book many lives before we remove it from the shelf. We create displays, make book lists, even send them to another branch to see if it will do better on their shelves. If a book hasn’t been borrowed in a year and we’ve tried everything, we need to rehome it. Other reasons we remove books are due to damage and general wear and tear.
Book: But some of those books are great reads!
Librarian: We know! And most are in great condition! But we can’t hold onto everything forever. Actually, more often than not some of the books we remove from the shelves are duplicates. So we might take away duplicates but that doesn’t necessarily mean that particular title is gone from our shelves forever.
Books: OMG! You’re targeting twins??!!
Librarian: This cannot be a real conversation…
It really can’t be. So let’s move on, shall we? What happens to those books next?
Book: Obviously nothing good…
Librarian: Once again you’re making this sound like something nefarious is happening.
Book: Isn’t it though? I hear librarians are kinda awful and untrustworthy…
Librarian: NO! We want these books to find new permanent homes and new readers. One way to do this is with a book sale. We don’t do it often but we are having a book sale this winter at Diamond Valley Library, Ivanhoe Library and Cultural Hub, Thomastown Library, and Watsonia Library on Saturday 3 June 2023.
Book: I’ve been to those places many times!
Librarian: Might be why you’re still on the shelf. People have found and loved you! Personally, I haven’t read you and probably won’t anytime soon. You’re obnoxious.
Book: Whatevs.
The Winter Book Sale sounds amazing. But what does the library do with book sale money?
Book: Yeah, I’d like an answer to this. Because I hear librarians just use it to go to fancy library dinners!
Librarian: Trust me when I tell you there’s no fancy librarian dinners.
Book: So where’s the money from the winter book sale going?
Librarian: All proceeds from the book sale go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. The ILF supports remote communities across Australia as there is often no infrastructure such as libraries or bookstores. Access to reading material is extremely limited and impacts the achievements of Indigenous children. The ILF focuses on ensuring access to quality resources, including books in First Languages, publishing Community stories and supporting Communities and families to lead the entire process to ensure leadership, ownership, and authenticity is held with Community Elders and residents.
Book: That sounds…
Librarian: Pretty great? Not just a bunch of librarians being nefarious behind the scenes?
Book: Yeah…
Librarian: We really do want people everywhere to have access to books and reading. It’s as simple as that. And if we can do that by raising money by rehoming books from our shelves which haven’t been borrowed for awhile so we can make way for more books, that’s win-win.
Book: Do you think I’ll ever be rehomed?
Librarian: One day you will be. One day you will.