Why Libraries?

An act of teenage rebellion was the catalyst for studying librarianship at university. My father, a librarian, felt I would do better to become a teacher, so I decided that librarianship was the career for me.

Fast forward to 2022, when I was already Library Manager of Falmer Library (University of Brighton) and then had to cover St Peters House Library as well for 2 years.  St Petes has a really interesting collection of books from across the years, some even from the very early days of the College and Art & Design. I used to randomly choose a book off the shelf when I was going round the library, opening up and started to notice that there were lots of different library ownership stamps from the various colleges that came together to make Brighton Polytechnic (now university) and also from public libraries. As a result I’ve started researching the history of the libraries that became the university. I’m taking photos of as many different stamps as I can and then screen printing them. I like printing on to different things, so beer mats seemed a good idea. I’m also planning to make a zine or artist’s book with the stamps in.

As a bit of a tangent, my late father studied librarianship at the college which became part of the poly, back in the 60s. I’ve got his timetable and diaries which talk about what he was studying and where he was studying. He was taught bookbinding in the college of art every Tuesday morning and I have some of the books he bound on that course. The public library stamps and date labels are from books that we withdrew whilst working in East Sussex Libraries (which he did all his life).

And finally of course, it links to me, having worked in University of Brighton libraries for the past 8 years (and in libraries since 1990). So the project is an intersection of my life / career / family / art, which is why it has so much resonance for me and will hopefully bring joy to others who love libraries.