Books Are My Business: librarian Carmel Hester
Carmel Hester.
I could say that I put books on the shelves and all of that but generally my job is to keep the Kildare community happy with books and inform them of the services that the libraries offer to everybody. This is very important now — libraries are more than books. We have e-services, people can learn languages and do all kinds of things. BorrowBox is also very popular. The most important thing I do is story time with the young children. I do it every Friday morning at 11 o’clock. I do music as well, and I sing and dance and dress up. I have been doing story time for small children for about 17 years so to win the [Children’s Books Ireland] award was the icing on the cake, or as I called it on the night of the presentation, it was my Oscar.
I love the people and the interaction that goes with it, especially with the children, they are the future of any library. The storytime is for babies and children aged up to five, you would be fascinated looking at them. The babies are jumping up, waving their hands and everything. It is so important to start from when they are babies. If you get the small children interested in books, you have them. It is also important to let people know that libraries are lovely places and there are no cranky librarians or anything, with the glasses down on their noses, looking over and saying ‘shush, keep quiet’.
Nothing. I couldn’t fault anything — maybe the heating wasn’t up high enough or the tea wasn’t strong enough, something stupid. We are in a new library here in Kildare Town and it is out of this world, it is beautiful. We even have a sensory pod here for small children. I have piles of toys here too.
They are very important for the community. No matter what age or stratum of society you come from, it is a place you can come in, you can sit and read the papers, go on the computer, browse the bookshelves, pass time and the main thing is it is a warm, comfortable and friendly place. And above all, it’s free. There was a time when there were charges to join and that turned a lot of people off. Andrew Carnegie built libraries for everyone, to be free and accessible to all. The schools are great here, they bring in classes every week. Children who don’t get to go to the library have an opportunity to come in.
I like non-fiction and I am interested in history so I would recommend by Tim Pat Coogan. I love Alice Taylor’s books, they bring you back to a different world. I am also reading by Flor McCarthy at the moment. I never realised that de Valera gave a pony to Grace Kelly’s daughter. There are some real gems in it.
I like [Richard Waring]. You think the fox is going to eat the hen but the hen eats the fox. I should have been in the Abbey, I go a bit dramatic when I read it. by Ian Beck is about a giant who loses his own teddy and goes into the children’s houses and robs all their teddies. A little boy makes the giant give all the teddies back and finds the giant’s teddy. It teaches children that they need to give back things. I’m not a teacher but if you can get a little message across it’s nice. And, of course, , the kids love it. Small children love repetition, I’ve never heard ‘you read that one before’.
