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???

It won.the booker and was turned into a TV show. Any librarian should have at least vaguely heard of it!

But "doesn't read books" is the far more worrying part.

No, that period of time was when I had young children so we were unable to go to the theatre. I went a lot pre-2001 and apart from children friendly shows and musical only really started to take an interest again around 2016/2017 ish. And 2021 was a bit of a shit show.

The latest things I have seen are things at the National. Dear England and Small Island for example.

You should've said 'Well, they were all out of prussic acid, so I borrowed this instead..'

All teachers should read books and be able to recommend one to a child

I’m really not sure I would have wanted book recommendations from my maths teacher

And you never read a newspaper or watched TV over that 17 year period?

Just be glad your school still has a library.

I would consider myself a reader, and I'd not heard of it. Its not the sort of genre I would choose to read though, and I don't have a career in fiction books so tend not to pay a lot of interest to 'the latest news' about books, which ones win prizes etc.

If you see some of the shit that parents are counting for World Book Day, it’s hardly surprising that school librarians don’t read. The bar is so awfully low.

I suspect she is a receptionist or dinner lady who’s upped her hours by managing the library as well.
It’s a pity that the school didn’t go for something interested in reading but maybe no one was available for this amount of hours and money.
And yes, it feels wrong. I’m not a big reader, English is my second language and I’ve heard about Wolf Hall. However we don’t know her duites it might be just open the door, do notes and close the door.

(Both my parents are retired librarians though, I shall have to ask them if they've heard of it!)

And I don't. The only series I'm keeping up with is Strike, because I'm looking forward to the next installment. 😊 I love reading, but a lot of what I read is old books that have been out for years.

Who reads newspapers today.

Tv, I watch Strictly, the occasional news programme, or if I happen to notice anything musical or dance is on. I rarely put the TV on. I do go to the cinema.

the last thing I saw at the theatre was Hadestown.

Magnastorm some of the best library staff I have worked with have zero library qualifications. Whilst I'd always encourage staff to do a masters to improve their career prospects, there is no doubting that most skills can be learnt doing the job for many roles. Because I studied before the job was so techy, everything I do I learnt to do later. Yes, I've done courses in this and that. We make skill up available to our staff and I'm grateful for the resources to do so.

Same as this. I get through a book a week on average, more before I had DC, and I've kind of vaguely heard of the TV series, but know nothing about it and didn't know if was a book.

I read masses of history, but the bulk of it is non-fiction, in fact the bulk of everything I read these days is non-fiction.

Most of us do

I think declining newspaper circulation would disagree with you there. Most people get there news from the internet. I follow politics and current affairs.

We read newspapers ON the internet, FFS.

I’ve an avid reader, but modern literary fiction is not my genre. I’ve just skimmed the list of Booker prize winners and there were only 9 I have heard of (some because they have been adapted to tv or film, like Wolf Hall) and there is only one I have read. I don’t imagine that it’s high up on the list for school kids (even in secondary) to want to read.

It surprises me that fiction readers have not heard of Wolf Hall.
Have you heard of Hilary Mantell at all?
I could imagine not remembering the name but I would be surprised at readers not being aware of Hilary Mantell and her whole series of books, especially as she died not that long ago.
And it's been adapted to TV and theatre so lots of reasons to have heard of it.

I wouldn't judge someone based on not having heard of one book though. I might judge if they were a professed fiction reader (of a broad range of fiction) or librarian and they hadn't heard of a whole bunch of books.

I didn't realise Conclave was a book until the film came out. Not my genre but I am aware of it now (should there be further adaptations made!)

I worked as a Library assistant (what most people would think of as a librarian) for a couple of years. I'm not a particularly avid reader, but I've a good logical brain, like putting things in order, good at customer service, good at computer systems, and have a good memory- basically, this is what is needed above reading the books because if you can't work the dastardly computer software which is very opaque, you're stuffed. I also noticed and remembered popular books - I could tell you the exact DDN for most categories of non fiction and exactly where they were in the library, I could pick books straight out by the look of their spine from miles off, people would think I'm a massive whizz and know everything about books. But I know how to manage books.

This is important especially re kids books. I definitely won't have read them unless they're 'classics' from my own childhood (I'm not a kid, don't have kids) but I can see what everyone's borrowing and recommend from there. You honestly would never know!

And that’s because of a culture of low expectations and setting the bar as low as possible “any book is better than none”.
Children aren’t stretched or challenged at all in their reading. The rise of YA (which has become more and more porn-soaked and is often more suited for adults not children) has done a lot of damage. And it’s not just young adult - publishers now have “new adult”, “emerging adult” and other such dumbed down nonsense.

I’m not a librarian but I am a library assistant ie I work in a public library. I’ve never read wolf hall and quite frankly I don’t want to.

Not sure why you need to have read Wolf Hall to work in a school library?

The fact I’ve never read Hilary Mantel or Wuthering Heights or pretty much anything considered classic literature doesn’t make me bad at my job. I recommend books to people day in day out based on what tell me they like.

The joke at my work is I read the books no one else, by which I mean my colleagues and regular customers, will. I love translated Japanese fiction (no, not just books about cats in cafes), non-fiction about recent history (like Patrick Radden-Keefe) some sci-fi (dystopian futures, not dragons) and anything that catches my eye.

And a Booker prize doesn’t mean a book is good, or accessible or enjoyable. I read Orbital, this years winner, and hated it. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle was long listed but never made it to the short list and it was one of my favourite books of last year.

Presumably the role is more admin and very low paid as pp have said so that would perhaps reflect the level of professional interest.

But there is a whole range of more interesting works of fiction. I might expect people to say ‘who’ if I suggested Octavia E Butler. Yet she was a winner of several book awards, one of her books was made into a Disney+ programme and her work is extremely thought provoking.

I doubt I’ll read her stuff because it’s not my thing but I know who she is and I’d recommend her to someone looking for new stuff, especially in her genre. That’s the level of general literature knowledge I’d think someone interested in books would have.