and I was appalled to see that the Covid lockdown in Wales had apparently caused bookshops to be closed, libraries to be closed and the shelves selling books in the supermarkets to be taped off.
The library here was closed for some months but some ingenuity allowed a service of sorts. You could go to the online catalogue and, if the book was in your own library rather than simply in the system, you could ask for it. You went to the library door and, with a complicated dance of social distancing measures, you could borrow it. Books were returned in much the same way if the returns chute was not open.
Were there health risks attached? Probably but the mental health risks of not having a library service at all were far greater.
The local indie bookshop was closed for about the same amount of time. It then reopened in a similar fashion to the library. A..., the shop's manager, told me that they had been busy throughout even though the regular deliveries from the suppliers had to stop.
I have lost count of how many people who told me they read more, especially more books, throughout the worst of our "isolation" times. There were thoughtful people who left boxes of books on their fences. The tiny "street" library did a rapid turnover as people borrowed and added to it. People passed on books they had read. They borrowed (and hopefully returned) more books. Fiction and non-fiction were borrowed.
"There are audio books if you want that sort of stuff," a non-reader told me of fiction.
I looked sadly at him. He doesn't understand the reading process at all. Yes of course there is a place for audio-books but reading a book is not about listening to a book. It is something entirely different. I find it hard to listen to an audio book. The voice gets between me and the words. I like to fill the silence with my understanding of what has been written.
As for non-fiction? My books tend to look like a hedgehog of post-it notes and slips of paper when I am working on something. No audio book can describe a diagram in the same way as the picture.
So many other people have told me the same thing. Not all of them are aware of it but physical books were and are an essential part of their mental health and well being. People need books for good mental health.
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1 comment:
Aren’t libraries wonderful? Providing services during very trying times. And being an accessible point of interaction, entertainment, instruction, etc, usually.
I usually read a lot of books, but, except for lots of reading (usually news and opinions) on the computer, I have read very little since the libraries closed. We have lots of books here at home I could read. I think part of reading, for me, is visiting the library and making a choice.
I think our local libraries are unwisely getting rid of “old” books and replacing them with fewer new ones, so the libraries look more like bookshops. I have found some treasures of reading in the old, worn books - shows they were read a lot.
LMcC
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