In the final part of our series about the daily life of a children’s librarian, our librarian juggles multiple jobs, puts on a show and reflects on over 20 years of service.
Te Whare Pukapuka o Matauranga kaitiaki pukapuka tamariki, Anna Leeds,* arrives in the city early on the final morning of the library’s school holiday programme. As excited as she is to observe the last of the six booked-out shows they’ve staged as part of a regional children’s library festival over the midyear school break, there is an inherent anxiety in executing them. Despite the months of preparations that have gone into the afternoon ahead, Anna thought of one finishing touch that can only be handled on the day: popping into the supermarket to buy fresh flowers for the performers, out of her own pocket.
As the show cost $1,000 – not to mention numerous staff hours, rehearsals, meetings and favours called in – to create, Anna has been super-focussed on publicising it. She frequently calculates cost-per-child ratios as evidence to pull out when questioned about the value for money she extracts from the grants she receives from the City Council; or to summarise for the local supermarket that has recently come on board with an annual performer sponsorship.
Once in the office, she checks the library’s facebook page to answer any questions about the show – eager to attract a large audience. She approves a handful of new members to their Kōrero Kids group page, all keen to know if they need to RSVP or pay to attend this afternoon.
“All welcome today. All our services are free, and they always will be,” she cuts and pastes in reply to each new member.
Anna spends the morning in her office, buying manga online for the Young Adults collection; downloading catalogue records from WorldCat for a series of books about difficult feelings that no other library in the country has; and editing the catalogue records of incoming new books, focussing on junior graphic novels, which they cannot keep enough of on the shelves. In larger city libraries, these tasks are divided into different departments, but Anna is in charge of all aspects of the children’s services here. Two library assistants – one full time, one part time – help her cover the counter and deliver programming. Promotional duties are supported by the City Council’s communications team, but Anna is in charge of ensuring it knows what’s going on, and is spreading accurate library messaging to the wider community.
As show time draws near, she eats lunch from her snack drawer, and relocates to the studio where the performance will be staged: the other side of the building which the library shares with an art museum. She keeps two phones hanging from one wrist, all the better to monitor any enquiries about the show, or alerts from the library while she isn’t in it.
She checks in at the front counter on her way past, to let them know where she can be found, and to say which direction any lost audience members should be sent. Inexplicably, at least for the moment, one of the senior librarians has stepped out from behind the Perspex customer service screen to hug a sobbing elderly woman, awkwardly negotiating the walking frame between them. A young library assistant scurries for a chair. A glass of water materialises.
Anna will find out later, the woman had come to hand in her deceased husband’s library card. It was one of the old, laminated cardboard ones, issued in 1987. He was a genealogy volunteer, well enough known at the library that a small delegation of staff will attend his funeral, and his hearse will be driven past the library as a mark of respect. A cadre of fellow volunteers and more library staff will assemble outside the library entrance to wave it by.
In the studio, Anna has barely begun unstacking chairs when there’s a knock on one of the internal doors. It’s Mason, the 10-year-old dancer performing today. He’s toting a unicycle. A knock on the fire exit opposite reveals the storyteller and harpist, who’ve arrived together, in a whirl of velvet cloaks and feather headdresses. In seconds, the mirrors lining one wall of the room reflect scenes of acutely focussed excitement.
Although the show doesn’t start for 45 minutes, families are already gathering in the nearby cafe, their eyes fixed firmly on the door at the end of the hallway where Anna is Blu-Tacking a sign stating requirements for people to queue here, turn their cellphones off, and let her know if they don’t want to be photographed.
When the time comes to hook back the doors and admit the audience, they almost trample Anna. Adults are directed to chairs – quickly filling them – ngā tamariki to flax mats on the floor. The featured musician’s album drifting from the speakers sets the tone as precisely as Anna had dreamed it would. Aside from the odd gently fussing baby being walked at the back of the theatre, the atmosphere is one of hushed expectation. A heavily pregnant mum reckons she’s in early labour, but wants to keep her fairy-winged preschool son entertained for as long as she can. Dad’s in the library if they need to leave quickly, she assures Anna.
Many of the attendees have stopped Anna to assure her the young dancer performing today is their “best friend” from school, so ownership is all over the show, and perhaps the key ingredient to why everyone is so willing to maintain the rare, calm atmosphere of expectation.
After standing by the door for 10 minutes, letting in latecomers with a finger pressed to her lips, Anna finally takes a seat herself. She keeps her camera at her eye, capturing as much of the wonder as she can for posterity and future promotions. As young Mason wheels across the stage, occasionally flying through the air, he takes everyone’s cares with him. His connections with the storyteller and the harp player appear to have transcended performance, and become quite real. Many a tear is brushed away when he leans on the shoulder of his “mother”, for comfort in times of sorrow, or stares into the eyes of the harpist, anticipating a cue.
The closing applause is rapturous and replete with much whooping and a bit of hanky waving. The fairy-winged boy bursts from his cushion to perform a spontaneous pirouette, perfectly timed to share the performers’ glory, and everyone cheers for him too. Anna rushes on stage with the performers’ bouquets, choking up when she thanks them.
The studio erupts in a buzz of conversation and congratulation as all Mason’s young fans descend upon him. The cast repair with various hangers on to the cafe opposite, Anna brushing off all offers to join them so she can tidy up the studio. The biggest part of this will be restacking the 100 chairs she unstacked earlier. Days like this are physically, as well as emotionally, exhausting. It takes her almost an hour to put things right, blasting out Anika Moa (one of her non-kiddie albums) on the studio sound system to fuel her physical labour.
She passes many of the show’s audience and all of its participants on her way back past the cafe, each of whom pass on compliments about how well the performance went. She makes a mental note to contact the City Council comms colleague who quietly filmed the whole show, then disappeared. Worried she didn’t get enough good photos herself, Anna is grateful for her.
Tempted by a rectangle of sun blazing at the end of the corridor between the library and the museum, Anna slows her steps, wondering if she can spare a moment to slip outside into the late afternoon. Just as she’s about to wander off, she collides with a gaggle of excited kids leaving the library; their homeschooling dad trailing behind with a banana box of books on one hip, and a wriggling toddler under the opposite arm.
“Whaea Anna! We’re going to find the perfect tree to read under,” one of the kids excitedly gushes.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” says Anna, smiling. “Can I come?”
The kids look at Anna incredulously for a moment, before they all shout – “No!” – in giggling unison.
“You have to stay here,” says the toddler, suddenly serious.
Anna fakes a pout, as if there’s somewhere else she’d rather spend her working days, as if she doesn’t know how lucky she is.
The caregiver, a frequent book purchase requester, smiles at her. “Right here, thanks Whaea Anna,” he says, with a smile. “They were a bit bereft to find you weren’t on duty inside today.”
She outwardly beams and inwardly sighs, for far from the first time, at the thought that out of sight means people think she has not been hard at work. After all, 40+ hours a week – except for sick days, public holidays, and annual leave – she’s been on the other side of the door for close to 20 years. It comforts her to think, life permitting, she’ll get to spend the next 20 years walking in and out of these exact same doors, whether anyone notices her or not. She’s happy to let the books, and the experiences they give rise to, speak for her work, any day.
*All names – including place names – have been changed. Te Whare Pukapuka o Mātauranga is a composite library.