Togas, Cupcakes and Stinkbombs

Shamelessly, I have lifted the following from www.librarian.net, because it made me smile. It is about the great Library of Alexandria, which came into being around 300 BC,and  which was the first known library of its kind to gather a serious collection of books from beyond its country's borders – in fact, was charged with collecting all the world's knowledge:

  " It contained a great repository of writings from all over the world and a lot of fat and happy librarians who got to wear long flowing comfortable robes and didn't even have a need for so-called "casual" Fridays.

The Library of Alexandria had zero public access terminals and no photocopying machine. Life was good. 

It was burned to the ground, a few times, by people who hate freedom.

This was the start of the great librarian scowl, and lousy work clothes.

And, since enemies of our enemies are our friends, we now love the freedom to read."

In fact we don't really know what did for the Library of Alexandria. But I do know that if I was a 2nd-Century-BC author of a Work Of Staggering Genius that reposed there and nowhere else*, and hadn't, you know, backed up...well, I'd have been pretty fed up. And the fact is, WE WILL NEVER KNOW  what was lost, when that library burned down, or whatever happened to it.

Now, some would say that the Internet is our modern equivalent: the ultimate collection of the world's knowledge. And it's true that it is an incredible mind-boggling resource that has revolutionised our lives. But to say that now we have the Internet we don't need books is a bit like saying that now we have cars we don't need wheels. And to be fair, no one's actually saying that – quite. What they are saying – and some of them are people in positions of power – is that we can afford to get rid of libraries.

Well I've blogged about this before, and I make no apologies for doing so again. Less than a year ago, author Alan Gibbons (below) started the Campaign for the Book; already it is making real changes, and we have just had its first ever conference.

But there's much more to do. We are still losing libraries, and as one speaker pointed out, once it's gone, it's gone: "the spider's web cannot be put back together by hand". We heard of at least one new school that has been built with no library in it. Cicero is famously quoted as saying "a room without books is like a body without a soul": well, what does that make a school without a library? Author Beverley Naidoo said "Britain is being barbarized". Coming from someone who grew up in a segregated South Africa, and whose first book was banned there, that is worrying indeed.

Books are your individual window on the world, a prism through which you can interpret it in your own unique way. As was also said at the conference (and apologies, I didn't attribute all of my notes): "reading a book is a creative relationship between one mind and another". The same cannot be said of the Internet. We were mostly librarians and authors at the conference; that's me with authors Bernard Ashley, Lucy Coats and below that, me and Linda Newbery in matching dangly necklaces.  And among the speakers were Frank Cottrell Boyce, Celia Rees and Gillian Cross.  But EVERYONE can do their bit, whether in matching dangly necklaces or not. 

Libraries are the cornerstones of our civilization, so if you know of a school or a local authority that is facing cuts, EMAIL ME ABOUT IT. I will make a stink, and if I know of any authors in the region, I will make sure they do too! Don't stand for this! Seriously. Let's all make a stink together. I'll come round to your house, we'll make stink bombs and then we'll let them off outside the councillor's office. Won't that be grand! 

And there'll be the added bonus of making librarians happy, like those ones in Alexandria before the fire. We can make them fat too, if we want, by making them cupcakes – though I'm not sure we can persuade them to wear togas.

You can also petition the Prime Minister to make school libraries statutory: go to http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/literacy .

I'll leave you with this thought: In 1948, George Orwell wrote a scary futuristic book called Nineteen Eighty-Four. Maybe you've heard of it. Two TV programmes have taken their titles from concepts in this book: Big Brother and Room 101. It's a truly great book that's scary for many reasons, not least because it depicts a world in which there is no freedom of information. And Big Brother, who's watching you all the time, and his Inner Party, use Newspeak, "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year." A key characteristic of Newspeak is calling something the opposite of what it actually is; so the "Ministry of Peace" actually deals with war, and so on.  I thought of Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was at the conference, because of some of the official governmental terminology that was quoted:

budget cuts = 'funding prioritisation'

library closures = 'strategic asset review'

And finally there is 'library', which apparently is a dirty word, and so needs to be called something else, like 'learning resource centre'. What is WRONG with "library"??!

So like I say; we need to club together on this and make a stand, before it's too late. Stink bombs, cupcakes and togas at the ready!!

*Quite likely, since in those days it never took less than 200 years for authors to become widely known – and authors complain about publishing being slow now. Sheesh!

Endangered SpeciesI'm talking, of course, about librarians. They are disappearing at an alarming rate, and if they are allowed to become extinct, here's what will happen:
– Your local library will turn into a BLOCKBUCKS. This is an alternative to libraries, and is a combination of Blockbuster and Starbucks. Yes, libraries need to move with the times, but these are exciting times where the written word is concerned, full of possibilities. We need to E-X-P-A-N-D choice, not limit it. Think of all the gazillions of books that have been published since 1439, not all of them by Jacqueline Wilson.
– Your school library could disappear overnight. Yes, this could really happen! For all I know, it has already. You need your school library; where else are you going to hide when you haven't done your maths homework?
The good news is, you can do something about it! Check out Alan Gibbons' blog for more info about his Campaign for the Book.

Me and JK Rowling
I know about the Campaign for the Book because I went to a big conference for children's writers at the weekend. We were in a large hall full of some VERY FAMOUS children's writers. Like Philip Pullman! Michael Rosen! Ann Fine! And many, many others, all together in the same place. Just imagine.

Well anyway, I mention this because I'm always being asked if I know JK Rowling. And the answer is no, I'm afraid I don't. In fact, I don't even know anyone who knows her. I think she only hangs out with the Queen and Stephen Fry. But I do know some other wonderful writers and illustrators, and here to prove it are some pics of me with them. That's me with Kath Langrish, Jane Ray and some teacups...

And here I am with Catherine Johnson, Dee Shulman and invisible teacups.

Among other things, I got to hear from Celia Rees about how she does her historical research, and learned all about William Nicholson's career as a novelist and screenwriter. It was tremendous! Oh, and Joyce and Polly Dunbar were there. I'm still not related to them.

Midgets
This is a long post, because I was away in Scotland with my family. A friend told us not to go to Scotland, because it was full of midgets. I said, 'that's OK, I'm vertically challenged myself.'
Then someone else said the same thing.
Then we found practically everyone we met was saying, 'don't go to Scotland, it's full of midgets'.
And I started to feel sorry for all those Scottish midgets, so lonely up there in the blustery braes, with no-one visiting them because everyone's telling them not to. So we jolly well went. And it was FANTASTIC.
We climbed down this (we came back up a different way!).
...And this is what the beaches are like:


But what about those midgets? Well, as those of you who've been to Scotland in the summer/live there will already have guessed, all those people were talking about midges. Yes, there are those too, but it's Not That Bad! And other places have mosquitoes. We had a wonderful time.

We even came across the odd endangered species (see what I did there? Back neatly to my opening theme). Here I am with one very rare beasty:













And finally, here I am with one very wee Scottish person (but not a midget). Her name is Isobel Gunn, she is my oldest cousin, and she is lovely. She ran a shop in Kingussie for sixty years, and still sings in the church choir.