The internship at Gladstone’s Library is like no other – we live together in the Library, have our meals here, work in the Reading Rooms and have a unique relationship with the vast array of people who pass through as readers and residents. It’s a haven of friendly people, quiet productivity, ideas and peace – or at least we try to keep it that way!
No fewer than three people came up to me during a recent weekend working and asked me, “Do you ever leave? You always seem to be here!” The answer is, well, no, we don’t. This is our home – we might wander occasionally on our days off, and head out some evenings, but we always come back. Today is my last day at the Library and I will badly miss it; of course I’ll come back to visit but it will never be the same. Come 5pm, they’ll have to pry my fingers from the Grade I Listed door frame…
Before I go, here’s my attempt to give an impression of just what it is we interns do all day – though no day in the Library is ever the same!
8:30am Bleary-eyed, we all descend from the flat to Food for Thought for breakfast. There’s full continental fare on offer, from bowls of warming porridge to boiled eggs, ham, cheese and toast – perfect for filling up on before the day ahead. It’s lovely when a guest joins us, and we can natter about their day or quiz them on what they’re working on.
8:55am Mugs of tea (or coffee to wake us up!) in hand, we head into the Library to open up. All the lights are flicked on, tables tidied, the House of Wisdom and the Annex opened up, and the handful of computers set up ready for users. Some keen residents may already be sitting at the desks!
9am Time to sort through the stacks of books that have been left on the desk for circulation and reshelving. We scribble down the classmark and accession number of each one, restore them to their rightful shelves, and hopefully the readers have left paper slips so we know who’s borrowed what and when, so we can put it through the system.
9:30am For the rest of the first hour, we concentrate on shelf tidying, and admin such as updating user statistics and processing new reader applications. One or two of us may be on the Enquiry Desk, hunting down books for readers, solving problems and, on a regular basis, launching into battle with the printer.
10am If it’s a Friday, we check the Library Assistant’s post for the new journals and periodicals, from the Church Times and The Tablet to New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement. These get added to a spreadsheet, stamped and stickered, then laid out for Library users to read. The old ones are stored in the Annex or, if they’re literary, in the Gladstone Room.
12pm First Glimpse of the day. We take turns to give mini-tours of the Library to visitors, on the dot at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. This consists of a five-minute chat about William Gladstone, the Library and what we do, before we lead guests into the Reading Rooms for ten minutes to look around. I never get tired of seeing people’s faces as they enter the rooms for the first time.
More tea.
1:15pm Lunch is usually staggered, so that there’s always someone on the Enquiry Desk. If it’s busy in the dining room we retreat to the Wickham Room, where the Library’s sole TV lives, and the staff can all catch up and gossip. One of us runs off afterwards on the post-and-bank-run, which is a lovely break in the fresh air if it’s sunny, and a daunting task in the wind and rain.
3pm Tea, tea, biscuits, tea. The afternoon is usually spent working on various projects, whether it’s cataloguing new acquisitions, entering items from an archive onto a spreadsheet, learning how to process a donation of DVDs, or making up new reader cards and sending them off.
4:45pm Now we tidy up, checking there are enough slip books and pencils dotted about, and picking up any books left lying around so they can be circulated in the morning. This is users’ last chance of the day for Library-related requests and enquiries. After 5pm, Friends and Residents can work on into the night – I’ve often come back in to do some writing up in the beautiful galleries, though as the night draws in it can get pretty spooky.
5pm Done for the day! The intern on duty speeds off to Reception to pick up the duty phone and be briefed for the evening, and the rest of us head back up to the flat to relax, or curl up in the Gladstone Room with a book – or sometimes, we head off to one of the village pubs to unwind!
9:35 - 9:45pm Time for lock-up, for the intern on duty. They check all is well in the residential wing, then clear the Gladstone Room and, the scariest part, switch all the lights off throughout the Library. Finally, they heave the huge wooden front doors shut and pull across a bewildering number of bolts to lock up for the night.
Kirsten-Rose Brooks