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Chelmsford Library in the 1980s was astonishing. It didn’t seem it at the time. It does now.
Week after week I went there, occasionally borrowing novels and biographies and scripts, but mostly borrowing scores.
It had an enormous collection of music, from Scarlatti to Stockhausen, and from Bach to Broadway.
I took out four scores a week, and played and played and learned and learned. I filled up with music, and with knowledge, and with experience.
At the time, it didn’t occur to me that this was anything remarkable: it was just a resource, like a tap. There was just water when you wanted it. There were just books when you wanted them.
If they didn’t have a score, I could order it through the inter-library loan service. I got Ives’s fourth symphony this way. It was something to look forward to. (And it was batshit insane, and still is.)
In the late 1980s, the library moved to a new, smaller home. It was slimmed down. I didn’t visit it as much. I didn’t like it as much.
And yet, it was one of the biggest influences on me. I often think about it.
A few years back, @caitlinmoran wrote a devastating piece about the library she grew up with. I read it and exploded into tears. I re-read it very often. It is a simply breathtaking bit of writing.
But it’s not libraries per se that move me – it’s the sharing of knowledge. It’s knowing there’s a hand to hold. It’s knowing there’s a tap. It’s access.
We all need access. Access to help. Access to ideas. Without it, we shrivel.
