Murder in the library
Why don't libraries make good detectives? It's all to do with melting in with a crowd, says Laurie Taylor in his weekly column for the Magazine.
Once upon a time I was a child librarian. Not, as I once had to explain over the phone, a very young librarian, but a proper grown-up of 22 years old who was in charge of the children's section of a library in a rather rough, run-down area of Liverpool.
Most of my duties were fairly routine: receiving and issuing books, cataloguing new arrivals, tidying up the tables after closing time, and ensuring that all the books on the shelves - apart from the great big ones which had a special section - were in strict alphabetical order.
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But there was also a moral dimension to my work. My boss - the senior branch librarian - told me that I should do my best to direct children towards more challenging books. Instead of simply conceding to their strident demands for the latest Famous Five adventure I should endeavour to steer them towards Swallows and Amazons or Anne of Green Gables or Treasure Island.
It was a pretty frustrating task. Children who were intent on getting their latest fix of Blyton appeared bemused by the suggestion that they try something completely different. Why, when they had come in for hamburger and fries was someone trying to persuade them of the merits of b
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