THE AMBIDEXTROUS LIBRARIAN

As part of my endless quest for professional development, I am currently undertaking an online course via www.futurelearn.com entitled "The Right to Education". ALIA sent through the link some months ago and it piqued my interest, despite the fact i'm not really an educator.  The course is based on the idea (or should I say "ideal") that all children should have access to free, quality education - regardless of their physical, psychological or social circumstance, but most of the content centres around the issues that prevent the realisation of this ideal. It would be Captain Obvious of me to say there are a LOT of barriers to education. Poverty, location, geography, war, gender, resources; just to name a few. If you live in a war-torn country, or a community that struggles for basic food, water, shelter or safety - education is going to fall a little low on your priority list.  But here in Australia, in all the glory and random luck of our first world birt...

MUSIC AND WORDS The other day my favourite bookshop (Readings) opened a new branch in a mega mall in Doncaster.  I'm not usually one for mega malls, but I felt the need to go and support Readings and basically give myself an excuse to browse and buy books (accompanied by another Librarian friend, of course). One of the books I bought was Music and Freedom by Zoe Morrison.  It so happens that this title just won the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction for 2016.  Totally justified win, it has to be said. I am a Librarian.  I am a mediocre musician.  I love all things creative that centre around words and sounds, so this book spoke to me in spades.  But spades of what?  Spades of discomfort and rage.  Spades of melancholy and infuriation (is that even a word).  Spades of happiness and hope.  Spades of curiosity.  A wide spectrum of spades. I would suggest that you start reading this book with the author's biograph...

Sometimes realisations will come to me in a flash.  Like someone has given my brain a solid nudge, and some loose piece of knowledge will finally settle snugly into its rightful place.  This happened to me the other day when I was serving a young man. He wanted to join the library, which was totally cool.  I love it when people join the library.  So I went through the usual spiel of asking for photo ID, proof of address, yadda yadda.  He gave me his Learners Permit.  Usually that's all you need. Except his Learner's only had one name, printed twice, and his birthday was 01/01/1996 or something like that.  I was a little bit suspicious.  "Do you have any other ID with your name on it?" I politely enquired.  At which point he gave me a couple of other cards, all with the same information.  I couldn't really question 3 forms of ID with the same info, so I just went ahead and created his library card with the details he had provided me....