This morning I was along at Acklam Library, my local branch of the public library. It's just been refurbished and is looking splendid! Anyway I've told the library assistants there that I want to do voluntary work reading/telling stories at the library. I told them this morning that it will probably be June onwards, once I've finished this college course.
Anyway, they said, have you spoken to the librarian about this yet? No, I hadn't. As it happened she was in today and I had a chance to speak to her. She's a young woman called Jessica, new in the post. When I spoke to her she was really helpful and enthusiastic! Yes, it would be perfectly all right. She has responsibility for story sessions in 4 of the libraries - so I would probably get a chance to go to some of the other libraries too. And I'd probably also get the chance to meet some of the other young people's librarians in the team. There's 4 in the team.
I've explained that I am a novice, and to start with I would be reading from a book and trying out my stories to find out which of them will go down well. Some may be too long, too complex, not interesting enough etc. I need a safe place where I can try out new material, and this looks like being it.
I've offered to share my material with her - or at least my sources. She will do the same with me. Most storytellers help each other. I've also said I'll keep her informed of any good events that will be helpful for her professionally. I told her about the Seven Stories (a children's book centre) that is being opened in Newcastle later this year - she hadn't heard about it and was very interested.
It probably also helped that I told her that I was formerly a librarian - meant we were speaking the same language.
This was a very good meeting for me! A young and enthusiastic person in this post is one that is most likely to be of help to me!!! She seems a very pleasant person and keen to improve her storytelling skills also.
Helpful meeting with librarian
What a fortunate meeting Diane. This sounds a really exciting opportunity to hone your skills, and wonderful idea to be in a familiar environment while you learn.
Good luck with this - I hope it leads to many things for you :)
Hi Philomel! Yes, this should be helpful. Though maybe I won't be doing as much volunteer work as I'd like initially. I'm wobbling back towards completing my teaching course in the autumn. I'm still not convinced that it will lead me anywhere, but I probably need to do it to complete that little episode of my life and move on. There's another teaching course that follows after it, but you need to be in paid classroom teaching work to go on the course, so at the moment I don't satisfy the entry requirements.