Books are My Business: Waterford librarian Tracy McEneaney

Tracy McEneaney is executive librarian at Waterford City and County Council

Tracy McEneaney is executive librarian at Waterford City and County Council.

How did you become a librarian?

I’m here for about 25 years; I came for work experience, then I went off for a couple of years. 

I was disillusioned because there were no permanent jobs at the time. 

Then a permanent job became available, I came back and that was it. 

I worked my way up the ranks and now I’m executive librarian with Waterford Libraries. 

I’ve moved around, I’ve worked in Dungarvan, Lismore, Portlaw, Tramore, and Waterford city, all around the county — there are 12 libraries around the county. 

I started in the Central Library in Lady Lane in Waterford City.

What does your role involve?

I manage five branches — Tramore, Portlaw, Browne’s Road, Dunmore East, and Ardkeen. 

I do a lot of promotion of libraries, more so now than we ever did. 

We recently did an outside broadcast with WLR [Waterford Local Radio] in Dungarvan, with 600 people coming into the library there, which was fantastic. 

The numbers in Waterford are amazing, we had 8,000 people through our doors last month in the Ardkeen branch.

What do you like most about being a librarian?

I love the people, and that every day is totally different. 

You could be asked for anything. 

Because we are living in the community, we know the people. 

If someone comes in and asks us something we don’t know the answer to, we find out who does, and we link them up — it is about information sharing. 

You also get great satisfaction seeing children coming in and joining the library for the first time. 

The excitement is brilliant. We have those little library book bags for the junior infants, the Summer Stars for primary school children, we are even supporting the Girls in Green with the FAI activity books for third to sixth class. 

I have no children, so the children who come into the library, I feel like they are my children. We take extra care of them.

What do you like least about being a librarian?

That is a hard question. 

I suppose what I like least about it is we are doing so much promotion around free membership and someone will still come in and ask how much does it cost to join. 

I would love for the whole country to be members of the library, for the message to get out that membership is free and there are no fines — it is open to all. 

And that we have free E-books, audiobooks, and newspapers. The newspapers are really popular. A lot of older people come in, bring in a cuppa, read the newspapers, and have a chat.

Why are libraries so important?

There is something for everyone. 

It’s a space for all and in that space, there is something to suit all ages. 

It’s fun and educational but it is continuous education, from young to old. 

We have smartphone classes for those aged 60-plus, we have Scrabble, draughts, book clubs. 

In May we have the Bealtaine festival, Heritage Week is coming in August and we are also organising events for that. 

People use the computers, they get help with CVs, all of that, there is so much going on in libraries, it’s amazing. 

We just had sensory play and we recently had the Press Photographers of Ireland exhibition in Ardkeen Library. 

You will even see us on the Waterford Greenway, where we have the Leaflings Story Trail. 

We are everywhere. We get out and about a lot making sure people know about our services.

What three books would you bring to a desert island?

I would bring the audio book of Surrender by Bono. I’m not even a Bono fan but it’s great, you have the voice of Bono and it’s 20 hours long. One day I was going for a walk and I thought it was raining, but it was only raining on the audio book — the sounds are so good and he has got his songs as well. 

I would bring Gangsta Granny by David Walliams to make me laugh, and because I think every adult should read children’s books. 

And finally, I love miserable books, I suppose because there is always hope at the end of it, so I would bring A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. 

So something to make you laugh, cry and someone to sing to you.