The changing face of our West Sussex libraries as they celebrate their centenary

As Russell Allen, head of libraries & heritage at West Sussex County Council, says, they most certainly have changed in many ways. But Russell is quick to point out that in essence they really haven't changed at all.

“Obviously they have changed in the way they look and the way they feel and in people's interaction with them but underneath I think they really haven't changed if you agree with the founding principles which were to improve the education and the lives of the common folk, the general public. The fact is that that is still the core mission of libraries. It's just that it all wrapped up in a 21st-century way now.

“I started working in libraries when I was 16. I'm now in my 28th year of my job. I joined the village library when I was growing up as a Saturday assistant and it was supposed to be just a Saturday job but libraries absolutely captured my heart. I could see how much libraries were doing for their local areas and I ended up working in all the libraries in my local area, Littlehampton and Arundel and Angmering and Rustington and so on. And I got to see that each library had its own character and its own way of doing things and in its own way of connecting with people. But for me what I really loved was that libraries were always such a safe and happy place. You always knew what you were doing, and I loved spending time in libraries when I was small. I would go with my mum and my grandmother and it just felt the libraries were safe places. I always had the association of libraries being places where you go to feel happy and safe and well.

“When I got the job at the age of 16, my plan was to be a maths teacher and my path was to go on to university to do a maths degree. I got there and I did the first year, but after the first year of maths I thought ‘Do I really want to be a teacher?’ By then I had really understood that libraries are such powerful places to work with people in both big ways and little ways. The little ways could be just to say hello to someone or to smile at someone or to help someone who's new to the area but they are also places where you help people in big ways. I remember helping a lady who came in who had lost her husband recently and she had gathered up all the flowers from the funeral and she wanted to find a way to preserve those flowers. We found the books for her and we got other books as well, and then a few weeks later she came back and showed us what she done with the flowers and that was really lovely. And it made me realise that libraries might be about books but that those books are a tool for working with people rather than the other way around and that's what made them so special. It made me realise that I could have a really exciting career in libraries.”

So Russell switched degrees, did information and libraries instead and joined the library service after graduating.

“I don't know whether I knew it as a six-year-old or as a ten-year-old but I know now that libraries are about people and that's an aspect of the library service that hasn't changed from Victorian times through to the 60s when they were established as a statutory service and then through to the 80s and 90s when the technology started coming in. But it all amounts to the same thing. The resources, whether they are digital or online or whatever, are still all about using the information to help people and to improve their lives. If the lady had come in now wanting to know about pressing flowers, we would be probably find all the answers online rather than getting in books for her, but it really does amount to exactly the same thing.”

But certainly the staff have changed. As Russell says, we all remember the fear of going into a library with a fine to pay. Back then the staff were the gatekeepers to the resources. But the point is that now they are neighbours, encouragers, brokers. Self-service means that the counters could come down. The staff are no longer behind counters stamping books. They are much more out there and much more able to help the customers.

“I think that has really shown in the past 20 years. The technology has enabled us to accelerate the social aspects from Victorian times when libraries were reading rooms through to now when they're much more community hubs where people can join in activities even board games or jigsaws. It is a change about where we want to be, and we want to be working much more along the lines of customer service and hospitality and retail. We want repeat visits. We want to grow our customer base.”

And that's the challenge for the libraries now: “We want to raise our profile. We want to be as well known as the NHS or the state school system.”