I could have been a baker
or a really good dressmaker,
A lawyer, a chemist or a cook,
I could have travelled far,
seen equator, Morning Star,
But instead I lost my heart to the humble book.

My journey began in Picton,
polished floors you almost slipped on
With balconies so high you nearly fell*
As you climbed the spiral staircase
It made you very nervous
If you’d climbed to letter ‘Z’ and not to ‘L’.

Statutes, abstracts and statistics
Patents, indexes and logistics
Scientific and Technical was the rule**
It was a job I loved dearly
Oh, yes, I did really,
Like an extension of my lovely time at school.

Transferred to branch I had the chance
In Western Crime and True Romance
To cover every subject known to man
The customers were gentle,
historical, sentimental
And they read every subject under the sun.

The librarian of old was worth her weight in gold
With her brogue shoes, twinset and her pearls.
When we revised the fiction
Under her jurisdiction
She’d not allow a chatter from her girls.

No YouTube tutorial, just instructions pictorial
Found from catalogues in little wooden drawers.
Dewey class number on the spine
Saved an awful lot of time
Unless the cards flipped out onto the floor.***

When academia beckoned
I possibly hadn’t reckoned
On even more subjects going through my head.
Essays and dissertations,
Exams and publications
For students striving to get ahead.

So I had all this knowledge, working in a college
I went off to university you see
To learn of classification,
cataloguing and translation
resulting in a Librarianship Degree.

A Chartership came next, working hard with lots of text
To analyse the kind of job I do.
Asking questions, why and how
Looking to develop things somehow
For the students’ best experience coming through.

So my library world has ended, so many people I befriended.
On my journey through the library stacks and floor
I’ll remember them with pride
Knowing well that I have tried.
To help every reader/student/customer that came through the door
(And I didn’t want to be a baker anyway)

* In the 1970s we used to climb up the little cast iron spiral staircases in Picton library with a whole armful of books for shelving. They wouldn’t do it now.

** Refers to my 12 months working in the Technical Library in William Brown Street Central Library where all the stock was science or technical based.

** Quite often the previous library assistant or librarian would forget to lock the rod holding the cards together in the drawer. If the drawer was pulled out too far the cards would fall out and you’d spend the next hour putting them all back into order – bear in mind the cards covered four entries - Author, Title, Subject and Series.