QE’s pupil librarians had the opportunity to gather inspiration from a leading girls’ school’s library when they paid a visit to hear a talk by a successful author.
Fifteen boys headed off to North London Collegiate School, where they were given a tour of the independent school’s McLauchlan Library after hearing from Young Adults (YA) author Keren David. They joined pupils from several other schools, including Hemel Hempstead, John Lyon, Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls, Sacred Heart and Copthall.
Keren spoke about how she became an author and combines it with a career in journalism. She also related her experience of turning her novel, Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery, into a script for a musical.
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She always writes in the first person and, therefore, before starting a new book, she must find the voice of a person whose story she wishes to tell. In her latest work, Cuckoo, the protagonist is a young, homeless actor who ‘sofa-surfed’ with friends to avoid sleeping on the streets – a form of hidden homelessness that is relatively common among young people because of family breakdown, as she pointed out to her audience at NLCS.
After the talk, the boys were free to explore the library, which dates from 1999. With study space for around 100 pupils, the NLCS library is similar in capacity to The Queen’s Library at QE, which opened in 2014. There are, however, some obvious differences: “Our boys were particularly taken with the vertical design of the McLauchlan Library, which is housed over four floors with a central spiral staircase,” said QE librarian Ciara Murray. Year 10 pupil Saifullah Shah wanted to see another floor devoted to books at QE: “The Library needs to colonise even more of our School!”
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The non-fiction collection at NLCS is long-established and Saifullah said he would like to see the breadth of QE’s non-fiction collection increased. However, Ms Murray said that after the visit, the QE pupil librarians reflected that The Queen’s Library’s fiction collection is a particular strength.
Saifullah also wishes to have more author talks at QE. Another Year 10 pupil, Alex Beard, was inspired by the languages collection at NLCS – Ms Murray pledged that QE’s own collection will be growing to match. Year 8 boy Arjun Patel collected some of the Year 7 recommended reading lists from the McLauchlan Library to help him with his current project, which revolves around making recommendations to people once they have finished one book and want something similar to read. He has devised visually attractive ‘recommended read’ cards to be inserted into the back covers of books.
Overall, although the boys had enjoyed their trip to the McLauchlan Library and were intrigued by the multi-floor design, they preferred the fact that in The Queen’s Library, it is not necessary to walk up and down stairs to get to different subject areas, Ms Murray added.