The oldest bookshop in Britain and a second-hand wonderland.

I visited two bookshops within the past week, and I wanted to do a post about my experiences.

On Friday I went with the school Librarian to Cottage Bookshop in Penn, High Wycombe to see if we could get some useful books for the library (mainly to re-stock missing titles we have in some series). It sells second hand and antiquarian books from an 18th century cottage (tres cute, but a little chilly!) and will buys books from you for a small amount if they think they'll be useful. They only accept good copies - no stained, peeling pages here - and from the minute you walk in you can't see from one end of the shop to the other. There's books piled right up to the ceiling on shelves that tower over you and create little mazes for you to become totally lost in.

(PICTURES TAKEN FROM THEIR WEBSITE)

There is, however, method to this madness. It's organised roughly by genre - the rest is up to you. If you ask them if they have a certain book, it may be a case of "yes of course, I'll go and get it" or, more likely, 'Um, if you wait here I will go and see". You almost feel like you should be attached by a rope to the front door so you can make your way out again. Kendal mint cake, head torch and all the rest. But it's so fun in there! You don't know what you'll find, and most of the books are so cheap! We bought about thirty-ish books for about sixty-ish quid. £60 would buy you, maybe, six or seven books anywhere else. If you aren't put off by masses and masses of titles and the notion of emerging several hours later blinking in the sunlight then it's the place for you too.

(PICTURES TAKEN FROM THEIR WEBSITE)

Then, on the Saturday, JJ and I visited London. I wanted to visit Hatchards. Founded in 1797 it claims to be London's oldest bookshop, and some say the oldest bookshop in the UK. Sadly, I think it's owned by Waterstones now - I have nothing against Waterstones at all, but it seemed a little sad that it was no longer independent.

Taken by yours truly. (On my phone so the quality is not brilliant!)

Hatchards was totally different to The Cottage Bookshop in every sense of the word. Organised, with helpful, very pretty floor descriptions so you knew exactly which books were on each floor. There were lots of signed copies (including Maddadam by Margaret Atwood- something I really wanted to buy, but have already asked my parents for for Christmas!) and a specific Folio collection.

Sweet, pretty, expensive books...

 

In terms of selection and quality, of course it was going to be fabulous. Especially good to buy presents for book lovers - as you're sure to find a nice copy, perhaps signed, to buy for someone. Staff were helpful and the store was beautiful - still keeping a lot of the old features, with lots of sofa's to rest on. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

 

My personal favourite has to be The Cottage Bookshop - I'm not sure if it's my bank account talking (you can't go wrong with £2 for a book) - or if it's the 'Alice' in me. It's like a bookish wonderland in there. Well worth escaping to for an afternoon and I can't wait to go back!



The Cottage Bookshop is open from Tues to Sat: 10am - 1pm and 2.15pm - 5pm.

	http://www.cottagebookshop.co.uk/ It's address is: Elm Road, Penn, High Wycombe, HP10 8LB
	and the telephone number is: 01494 812 632 Hatchards is open Mon-Sat 9:00am-19:00pm and Sun 12:00pm-18:00pm http://www.hatchards.co.uk/ It's address is 187 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LE and the telephone number is 020 7439 9921

Over and out.

It's gone!

On a quick note - I sent off my application last week to study Library and Information Studies at Manchester Met University next year. Wish me luck!

Pre-Library Camp Post #1: Why I'm bricking it.

Library Camp UK 2013. First of all, what is it?

For a start...it's not even a camp. Not in the camping sense. However Library 'Meeting' UK 2013 doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Library Camp is an un-conference. It is a meeting, a gathering of Librarians, Assistant Librarians, Librarian wannabes and Library lovers to talk about - you guessed it - Library stuff. This year it's being held at the new Library of Birmingham, which I'm really keen to visit anyway for two reasons. The first being that it just opened - it's big and looks awesome and I want to see if it's got substance and style. The second being that my friend goes to university in Birmingham and afterwards we're going for some food and a catch up! But I digress...

What makes it an un-conference is the way in which it is structured. Basically, there isn't a structure. The tickets are free, all you have to do is snap one up (which I managed to do with just 14 left!) and the guests bring the topics for discussion. There are 200 people attending. The idea, to make it work, is that you suggest a discussion/game/something to do. Then you all go and do it. You're free to come in and out of the library, take time to wander around, blog, take pictures etc. You could just go and participate in everyone else's activities. However if everyone did this there would be very little going on. I really want to be one of those people who gets involved and holds a discussion on something really awesome and fun.

However.

I don't know what to do.
I've got all of nine days to plan and perfect something. Trouble is, having never been to one of these before, I've really got no idea what I'm supposed to do. Do I suggest a topic and just let everyone else discuss away? Do I have to give a short speech and present my opinions on something, then let everyone else pick over my points? Or do I come prepared with powerpoint presentations, flip charts and diagrams to give an hour long lecture? Probably not the last one.  But you see my dilemma.

Oh the horror! There's a lovely sessions proposals page, where everyone is pitching potential ideas. All of them sound like they know what they're doing. There's another issue right there - if I did a session, would anyone gain anything from it? I don't know nearly half as much about the library world as some of the people attending. I'm not a qualified Librarian and I've only been in my current position of three months. Is it even worth contributing anything?

Idea's I'm potentially considering are as follows:

- Re-iterating the idea of the library as a communal asset. How do you prevent books being taken from a school library with no security system in place.
(Basically try and get some ideas. I work in a boarding school library, that the students can access 24/7. There's someone on the desk from 8:30am - 20:00pm Mon-Fri and 9am-12pm on a Saturday. However books go missing all the time. Students don't sign them out, wander off with them, then when we check the shelves they aren't there and we have no idea if they'll come back. Some do, some don't.)

- Libraries: Places for introverts and extroverts.
A discussion on the physical design of libraries. The open spaced, minimalistic approach, could be  off-putting to introverted types, who studies show prefer 'nooks and crannies' (I know I do). There's some interesting work that's been done on office designs in this respect - it would be interesting to compare the findings relevant to what environments introverts and extroverts thrive best in, to library environments. How can we make spaces work for everyone? And can people over-generalise when considering what these two personality types 'need'.

And that's kind of all I've got. Apart from plan C, which is to turn up and wander vaguely around hoping to learn something from everyone else who is probably better at this that me.

Oh and lots of people bring food for the event. But that's another thing to panic over later.

Oh Knickers. Wish me luck.

Over and out.

Hot off the Shelf: What I'm reading - 'The Observations' Harris, Jane.

One spoiler, but nothing vital to the plot.

(Yes, I'm trying pictures now!)

I don't really know what to think about this.

I borrowed it from the library, as Goodreads had suggested it, based on the other things I had read. I can see why it flagged as a suggestion. It's the kind of thing I read when I'm looking for a novel that's not too demanding, not too heavy, but with enough of a plot to keep me interested. I seem to lean toward historical fiction for this sort of thing (which is weird, because that genre can often be very heavy going!), usually set in Victorian (ish) Britain. These novels I enjoy are often very well researched, which I like, and are almost more engrossing for me, as (I think I've mentioned before) my knowledge on historical matters amounts to very little. This novel in particular was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction in 2007, which reassured me it wouldn't be awful at least.

A lot of these books that I enjoy for 'light' reading seem to be based around a female protagonist, who is of a lower class. She moves to a city, or takes up a position somewhere and some kind of mystery or drama happens, to generalise somewhat. This is sort of the plot in 'The Observations'. What I liked most about this novel, is the narrator, Bessy Buckley. An Irish Girl with a sketchy past that's unfurled slowly throughout the novel, who moves to Scotland and takes a position as a maid at an old, ill-kept manor house. The historical slang she uses and her tone in general is really fun and keeps you well in her mind-set and the era of the novel. Her honesty and openness is what kept me moving through this at the rate I did. Usually with these books I like to read slowly, a bit at a time. But here I quite wanted to know what happened next, as Bessy's reaction to things often mirrored my own, especially her ponderings over the odd habits and directions displayed by her 'missus'.

The story is well paced, neither giving you everything right at the start, nor rushing everything at the end and the characters are well developed and believable. It concludes well, I felt satisfied by the ending. You don't notice, but Bessy's manner of speech alters somewhat by the end, it becomes slightly more refined - but she is still Bessy. Still using some of her slang and still devoted to her missus.

One bad point? I really didn't understand why Bessy had that brief...ahem...'moment', with Hector. It may have been put in to show Bessy's emotions, how low and flippant she was feeling. But she made her revulsion of him perfectly clear for the whole novel, both before and after the 'incident' and her past would have put her off boys such as him (one would assume). That's the only niggling I had. I just don't think she would have done it, should she have been real and had gone through what she did.

Overall probably about 3.5 out of five. A nice example of it's genre. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I will be visiting some lovely bookshops and libraries to write about on here!

Over and out.

Is an MA in Library science a poor investment? My thoughts on an online article.

I found an interesting article on a website called Information Space, which was a response to an article in Forbes Magazine "The Best and Worst Masters degrees for Jobs". It's called "Is a Masters degree in Library Science a poor investment?" From what I can see, Library and Information degrees are not actually mentioned in the main body of the Forbes article, but in the picture section. They tie it with Counselling, in terms of Mid-Career median pay and projected employment increase. The article on Information Space makes some very good points to oppose the 'facts' put forward in the Forbes article. I thought I'd share the article, as it might be of interest to people out there, and also throw in my opinion on the matter. The article is only about a year old, so still fairly relevant.

Point number one: Obviously, I disagree with Forbes. I think a Masters degree in Library Science is a great investment...depending on a few things. I've seen a couple of people commenting on the article who think the same: you have to have some experience too. It's worth taking a couple of years working in assistant roles to develop your experience, then getting yourself enrolled onto a masters. A) You're more likely to get onto a masters course and B) you are more likely to get employed afterwards, because you'll have some real working knowledge of how libraries are run. Likewise, if you have years and years of experience, apparently it's often hard to get employed is you don't have the Master Degree. It's the first thing employers look for. Another reason it's a good investment.

Point number two: who said it was all about the money? I'm not necessarily (hopefully) going off to do my masters because it's going to get me a job that pays bucket-loads by the end of it. I'm going to do it because it's what I want to do. I love doing it and I think I'll be very happy doing it. I also want to do the job to the best of my ability - getting the masters will help me do that. Librarian's get payed more than Librarian Assistants, this much I know. But I haven't ever really looked at how much more. So long as I can keep a roof over my head I'm happy. Hopefully I can afford to do this.

Point number three: Yes, a masters degree is Library Science is a poor investment - but in my opinion, only if after you have got the qualification, you sit around and wait for the jobs to come to you. You have to be flexible. When you've got your degree, you start applying for Librarian positions, wherever they may be. Perhaps you'll be lucky and find something local. Most likely you won't. If you aren't willing to go to the jobs when you've got your degree, then it was perhaps a poor investment.

Last point. Rant almost over. I think the Forbes article only took into account 'Jobs in Libraries'. Yes, this is what I want to do, but there is more you can do with a degree in Information Science and Librarianship. This is one of the points made on the Information Space article that I really agree with.

Read and see what you think. Poor investment? Or is it only a poor investment if you think you'll become a millionaire. How much does money matter when you're doing what you love?
For now,

Over and out.

Hot off the Shelf: What I'm reading - ‘Persepolis’ Satrapi, Marjane.

Spoilers. Again. I’ll try to do the next one without them!

For a start…what is Persepolis? What does it mean? That was the first question I had. Here’s a definition:

“Persepolis means "City of Pars" and it was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire during the Achaemenid dynasty in its golden era.”

Here’s another one:

                “Persepolis: An ancient city of Persia northeast of modern Shiraz in southwest Iran. It was the ceremonial capital of Darius I and his successors. Its ruins include the palaces of Darius and Xerxes and a citadel that contained the treasury looted by Alexander the Great.

There you go.

GoodReads gives a fantastic summery of the book:

“Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.”

I will admit there is another reason I copied a summery from GoodReads, instead of writing one myself. I am not at all a political person. Politics often washes over me, and my history is just as bad. Therefore books that are particularly political or require a decent understanding of certain eras of history, tend to muddle me a bit. I often wonder how to summarise without making mistakes or sounding too basic. So GoodReads, thank you for that neat, perfect summery. Now here’s what I thought about it.

I’m trying to branch out with the types of novels I’m reading. Persepolis is a memoir, written in comic strips. I found it funny, heart-breaking and shocking all at once. It’s raw and very, very powerful. I’d say it was like nothing I’d ever read on the subject – but what I have read on the subject amounts to very little, so it’s not saying much. You believe everything she writes, it’s not over done and the language develops as we see Satrapi grow from a headstrong child, full of truth and ideas in to a beautiful woman, still full of opinions and journeying from the lowest places a human can be trapped (emotionally and physically) to the happy and comic moments that adulthood brings. And I’ll tell you one thing:

It was the best history lesson I’ve ever received. Who said books could teach you nothing?

Read this. It’s important. Because no-one tells history like the people that have been through it. Satrapi went thought it.

Over and out.