Public Library and Other Stories

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Here’s what Helen Oyeyemi told me about the connective network of public libraries:

Public libraries were the making of me. The local library was a very practical solution to restlessness of mind plus very minimal funds. But the amazing thing was that there were three libraries in one. I lived close to the smallest of those (Deptford branch) but if I needed a book that the Deptford library didn’t have, I was referred to the medium-sized library (Lewisham), which was a longer bus ride away, and if the medium-sized library didn’t have the books I needed, then the biggest one definitely did, and I’d go all the way to Catford for those books. Between them these three never let me down. It was like living in a triangle of protection. The public library network definitely strikes me as some sort of live and benevolent organism.