I said, let me tell you now

Ever since I heard this month’s #AusGlamBlog theme was “Happiness” I’ve had that Happy song stuck in my head.

“Clap along if you know what happiness is to you”

I’m new to the library world as a professional, but not new to libraries. A sequence of fuzzy memories swirl in my mind when I think of libraries.

First, was my local public library children’s cave filled with books that glittered with colour like jewels.

Next, I recall the mesmerising tone and timbre of the librarian’s voice at primary school. Each week she transported us into a different story as we sat, cross legged in front of her, in some form of rapture.

Coming into closer focus I recall opening drawers in the huge wooden catalogue in the library at high school. Breathing in the deeply lovely, dusty air wafting up whilst flipping through those tiny cards was a tactile delight. Some cards were handwritten, some typewritten, some plastered with laser printed stickers.

And finally, I remember relishing the peace and quiet afforded by booking one of 49 carrel study booths at La Trobe University.

I love libraries. Libraries make me happy.

The loss of libraries makes me sad. I think of Alexandria, and more recently in Timbuktu, and closer to home, I mourn the libraries lost to the dreaming by the ravages of destructive colonial force on this little continent so many of us now call home.

Preservation and digitisation, and open collections give me hope. There can only ever be one precious original of a thing, but facsimiles, and copies and 3D blueprints increasingly means physical things can now too be shared and studied without needing to handle, or risk damaging the original.

Sending precious things from collection to collection is fraught with danger. The revelations of what Australian customs did to priceless plant specimens from France & New Zealand still gives me goosebumps of horror.

Digital. Copies. Catalogues, Circulation, Fines, Holds, Reserves, and Serial patterns. I’m learning new things about the complexities under the surface as I start to work seriously with the Koha Community Integrated Library System. I first learned about the Koha ILS more than a decade ago, but I'm only now getting a chance to work with it. It brings my secret love of libraries and my publicly proclaimed love of open source together in a way I still can’t believe is possible.

So yeah.

OH HAI! I’m Donna, and I’m here to help.

“Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do”