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

[Prevalence]

was chatting to a friend - who said the school librarian where he works doesn't read books, has never heard of Wolf Hall and cannot recommend any reading books to pupils as a result ... AIBU to think this is nonsense???

Back in the day a qualified Library Assistant would often be the person in post. However, as a career with qualifications, this has all but disappeared. The City and Guilds library assistant course was a really good one to have

None of my kids' school libraries have actually had qualified librarians.

At the village primary school it was a dual school/public library run by volunteers. DD2 became a lunchtime volunteer at the age of 11 (mostly to do inter-library loans for the stuff she wanted to read) - most of her "librarian" work involved scanning books in and out and helping elderly people find books.

At high school the "librarian" was actually trained as a nurse but was a refugee from Bosnia. She assisted in the library as a language work experience placement and when a qualified librarian left in the 1990s they didn't replace her but just upgraded the work experience student to a (lower paid) full time job.

You are part of the problem. If valuing high quality literature is just ‘snobbishness’ what’s the point of Shakespeare, Jane Austen etc? You are arguing against skill, quality and high art, and calling anyone who values these things a snob.

If you’re going down that road why read at all? We might as well just lobotomise ourselves and watch Netflix all day.

(Btw I do find Dog Man rather funny but I’d be disappointed if that’s all my kids ever read)

It's sad if the person running the school library doesn't at least love books, regardless of their qualifications. A school library should be a place that encourages a love of reading as well as the IT support that it also offers.

Wolf Hall comes third in the NYT's list of Best 21st Century books, and second in the Guardian's. It's really not an insignificant work of literature.

I was a librarian when I was at school. Had a badge and everything. Our school library was entirely staffed by pupils, but those who volunteered for the job tended to be the booklovers.

I've never read Wolf Hall (not a HM fan), but I've heard of it, know it was adapted for TV and that there are sequels (which I could probably name, given a bit of a run up).

I think the books were written after the TV series to accompany so this is ok.

No. I’m saying that people who judge others for their reading choices are snobs.

No issue with people who enjoy and choose to read that type of literature (although I’ve never understood the love for Jane Austen), and can see an argument for them being taught in schools.

But when reading for enjoyment there should be no inherent “hierarchy” in what you choose to read. If you like Dickens, read that. If you like Twilight, read that.

I also don’t think book reading is necessarily superior to TV watching, either. What is actually wrong with enjoying Netflix?

I have been a school 'librarian' although AFAIK there were no chartered librarians in post at any local schools at that time. Wolf Hall wasn't in the stock. There wasn't much adult fiction at all, apart from the classics, mainly because so much of it contains all the things we'd like to think our children are innocent of such as sex, bloodshed, crime, violence, drugs and swearing. We had YA books in with some of those things in and the parents would complain about those.
I did read as many as I could of the books on the shelves but there were thousands of them and I'd never get to all of them, even if I spent all day every day reading. It is true that without reading it's hard to recommend a good book to others, and that is an important part of the job. But mostly I did my reading at home after work, as the library was always busy during school hours.
My working days were full of children, and my evenings full of children's/YA fiction, there really wasn't any time for reading the Booker list or keeping up with adult fiction in general, so this seems quite normal to me.

I used to work in the school/ public library sector. Virtually no schools now would employ a professional librarian- far too expensive. But I would hope that anyone running a school library, even part time, would take the trouble to be familiar with children’s /YA fiction beyond the obvious such as Dahl and Harry Potter. How can you recommend books otherwise? It would be nice if they enjoyed reading a wide range of adult books as well but you can’t dictate what people do in their spare time.

I doubt the school has an actual librarian, just someone that works in the library.

But it's not about reading the books. It's about an interest in reading and an awareness of what books are considered good for those who might want read new things or more things like they have already enjoyed. It's signposting.

When working in a bookshop, if I'd been asked for recommendations and I'd just looked blankly at the customer and said 'I don't know, I don't like scifi/horror/crime' etc, I wouldn't have been a very effective salesperson. When I worked in a public library, we picked up what was popular and getting good feedback, and we understood from that what a customer who, eg, enjoyed Agatha Christie might like to try next.

Someone working in a school library should have a basic awareness of some of this. A passion for reading (whatever genre, fiction or non-fiction) is going to help a lot but it really is sad if kids who want to know more about what is out there, or need some support to get going, can't now get that from a school library.

This school is local to me and has won awards for what it does. It refers to example to book lists that support the history curriculum, which feels quite a basic for a school library to me.

Insights into School Libraries: Forest Hill School

I read about a book a week and have never heard of Wolf Hall. A librarian that doesn’t read seems odd but you only have your friends word for it.

That's depressing.

Hello, I have worked as a school librarian - I would say an interest in YA fiction and knowledge about books for 11-15 year olds is more useful than having read Wolf Hall here! In my two years not once was a child ever remotely interested in asking about Hilary Mantel but at the time the fact that I had read Angie Thomas, Karen M McManus, Leigh Bardugo, Rainbow Rowell (just for instance) (and of course the endless bloody Wimpy Kid/Tom Gates requests) was way more useful. Now I'm not in that line of work anymore I read way less YA so it would be some different authors again, but that was what I felt the need to keep on top off in that post.

Otherwise the job requires a knowledge of the school lit curriculum and working with the English department closely to help them provide that, managing a software and reading for pleasure budget, textbook budget, potentially line managing some assistants if you're really lucky, running accelerated reader schemes, teaching information literacy, supervising library lessons, supporting students taking EPQs, supervising the students that inevitably end up with you because they can't be in class....the job description definitely does not include "reading the booker shortlist"

I think she must have been living on Mars ! Hilary Mantel is a hugely successful author whose work has been televised .The winner of Booker prize twice. I think maybe even in Waterstones the staff recommend works they like and have even possibly read.I think its a poor show TBH .My friends DD had a job i the library of a girls private School .She had an English degree!

And yes as a profession it has been hugely deskilled and it's likely if your child goes to a state school there won't be a chartered librarian in post now - there will be a literacy coordinator or an HLTA or a rota of teachers staffing the space at break. And actually, the space will probably have been co-opted as a shared space with IT, or in part time use as a classroom, or gone altogether. It's a tragic loss and a waste, I work in HE now the regularity with which students come in having never been to a library before is terrible.

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

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.

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.

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 ?)

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.

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.)

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.

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.

Please tell me you’re joking!