to think a school librarian should have heard of Wolf Hall and actually read books?

Yes I was joking 😎

It’s been adapted for the theatre as well.

I used to work in a school library - I had the aforementioned City and Guilds qualification and also the NVQ and my boss (granted this was a private school) was not only a qualified librarian but also a qualified teacher.

She was absolutely passionate about encouraging kids to, first of all, just READ... then to use that as an inroad into exposing them to more and more quality books - and she also made sure to expose me to a range of great kids' literature while I worked there, to the point where, when I left and went off to start a PGCE - they asked us as an initial exercise to brainstorm kids' books and authors we knew of... most of the class managed a decent list... mine went on forever.

My kids' permanently skint state school has a member of staff responsible for the library who does try her best to promote reading around the school - although DD1 is hiding from her after I grassed her habit of hiding the books she wanted to read up to the library staff! (DD1 is a book hoarding goblin creature)

The dramatisation of Wolf Hall originated with the RSC, moved to the West End and then Broadway.It won both Olivier and Tony awards.

Is she ACTUALLY a librarian though?
I work in a school and our “librarian” is a TA who mans the library, makes sure the ch keep it tidy and signs out their books for them, as well as doing some English and Maths interventions. Not a role she particularly wanted or asked for, was just given it by the school as she’s very organised and tidy. I’ll have to ask her if she’s ever heard of Wolf Hall.

Thank you. I absolutely agree with all of this. It's massively important to understand what books will hook kids in and feel meaningful to them.

My gut reaction I think does remain that Wolf Hall is such a prominent book that it would be impossible to be keyed into modern literature at any level and simply never have heard of it, and even if your focus is strongly in more relevant children's/YA/English curriculum areas, it's worrying if you've just never heard of it as what else might you not know about?

And as someone who grew up a history geek who would probably have devoured it in my teens if it had been published at the time, and my school librarian was incredibly formative for me in helping me find books I loved. Projection innit?

There was a school librarian job advertised near me a while ago. A friend of mine was interested. It paid a few pence per hour over minimum wage! You aren’t going to get qualified people for that pay.
The job description was basically check books in and out and monitor behaviour in the library.

I read a lot although not so much in recent years but I have never heard of Wolf Hall.

I don't watch TV though. I go to the theatre a lot so am probably ore likely to have heard of plays.

I didn’t say it was. I’m simply correcting your assertion that lots of books have won the Booker.

I was involved with the digitisation project for card catalogues at a major library many years ago. I am also old enough to remember working with the card catalogues. I did like them, but they had short comings same as anything, just different snags

Yes, lots of notable and very famous books haven't won a booker.

It's not the be all and end all.

Op's friend is a gossipy twat.

Apart from that, there is very obviously a difference between a qualified librarian and someone who isn't. And even then, it's not actually in the job description of a librarian to have read every book ever.

I read quite a bit, and I've not heard of Wolf Hall because it's a genre of book I'm not hugely interested in, and I don't watch TV. So what?

Don’t knock Dog Man! My kid asked me if he could read East of Eden after it was referenced in a Dog Man book. He was about 8 at the time so I suggested he leave it a few years but it was on his radar at least.

@Printedword other services went down/offline because we were busy reading
aah bring back the old style card index!! i loved looking through that!! it told you exactly which book unit and which shelf to find the book.

I'm not impressed with the way your friend is talking about a likely much lower paid colleague.
Also, I'd put money on some of those posting on this thread, having only heard about WH because they saw it on TV.

Lots of books haven’t won the Booker, though. That is why books that win it are notable.

Please tell me you’re joking!

It seems that this is not a qualified librarian, but also not someone who should be within a million miles of a library position either - but such is the way, I guess she’s the only person around to do the job.

And I do think a librarian (an actual school librarian, I mean, not some random Joe) should know the classics, including modern classics, and also know the difference between gibberish and quality - which isn’t to say that there’s a lot of fun to be had reading gibberish, but much YA is poorly written and very formulaic.

A good librarian should be able to expand children’s minds.

They're probably not a real librarian. There are schools where the 'librarian' was a member of the office staff who had been given the job of running the library. That was the case when I was at secondary school in the '70s.

I'm a mostly retired secondary school teacher (Scotland). In the 1980s and 1990s all the libraries in the schools where I worked were run by chartered librarians. By the time we reached he current century, many schools had reverted to the cheaper method of merely giving a member of the office staff the title of librarian.

Hmmm, no.

But Wolf Hall is not just a Booker winner. It's acclaimed as one of the very best books of this century. It has had two award-winning TV adaptations. To have not even heard of it feels surprising for someone who works with books.

(I guess if you were a specialist primary school librarian - an expert on picture books, say - I might cut you some slack.)

I do understand why people would have a visceral reaction to the feeling that a librarian wasn't a "reader" - that how could we support people in finding a love of reading if we are not lovers of reading ourselves, and that is generally a notion I would agree with (for what it's worth, I have read Wolf Hall, and really enjoyed it, but I do like historical fiction generally. Not everyone does, and that's ok!). But I do think there is an interesting conversation to be had here (perhaps poorly prompted by the OPs post, which does come across as snobbery) about what reading is valuable, what literature is valuable, and what makes people actually enjoy reading.

I want kids to love reading, to value it as a pastime and choose it over dicking about on their phone. If they are someone with a short attention span, entrenched in a habit of going on social media to relax, if all I can recommend them is "classic" literature or weighty tomes then they're going to come away thinking the library is not for them. And in a diverse school, there are plenty of children for whom the Tudors might be something they can't connect with, but stories from their culture or home country would be much more engaging and interesting, enabling them to see themselves more in what they read. And yes, of course there were still voracious readers and who I wouldn't really need to work at finding extra reading for - they would often suggest books to me!

Overall I think the message from a librarian shouldn't be one of venerating a particular canon above anything else, and that all reading is valuable, not just someone reading what you think is worthwhile.

ItIsIbeserk Your local School lib looks fab! An example to other schools everywhere.Do London boroughs still have more funding though? I went to School under ILEA(thought that was the case then ?)

Private school? Primary? Is she friend or family of staff member?

Don’t think needs talk to parents about adult books but would expect her to have expertise in children & young adult.

That's really helpful context, @Lemonyyy . I can totally understand the YA focus and I'm really aware that it's a huge field that has grown a lot since a lot of us on this thread were younger, so our expectations there are likely to be out of date to that extent. And thank you for a reply that doesn't feel like a race to the bottom of what a school library can and should do.

I think for me though it's the 'never heard of Wolf Hall' that depresses me, not the 'never read Wolf Hall'. (I've never read Wolf Hall! Mostly because I am thoroughly bored of the Tudors) But being aware of the 'big' books of modern literature feels like something that comes naturally out of a general interest in reading and books, and not having that knowledge suggests someone who isn't really engaged.

Knowing about books won't have been in the person spec. It would have been more important to know about well-being...