#macklibmemories

As a student, I'd also been a shelver for the main Glasgow School of Art library in the Bourdon building across the road from the Mack. After I graduated, I was lucky enough to get a job in the main library as a library assistant. It was only a Saturday job to begin with, but when I managed to get a six month full time contract to cover maternity leave, I was also given a weekday shift in the Mack library. Unfortunately/fortunately it was generally quiet, and I spent some time getting to know little pockets of the collection. I was a very green information professional at that point, overwhelmed and timid. I wish now that I'd pulled much more out the shelves for a look. I'm an illustration graduate, and I remember many beautiful things: artists books; and gorgeous Walter Crane, and Jessie King illustrations; and fragments of Sappho, translated by E.M. Cox, illustrated by Lettice Sandford. On p30 there is this - From my distress: let buffeting winds bear it and all care away.

In the summers of being a student at the Glasgow School of Art between 2000 and 2004, I gave guided tours to visitors to the Mack Building. I'm not necessarily the most comfortable public speaker, but I love the building, and I tried hard to engage the people. The Mack library, however, brought out the dramatist in me. I remember that as we would collect together from coming down the stairs from the furniture gallery above the library, I would get them all around me at the glass panelled door before I opened it. I would tell them a little about it as they looked through the door at the unlit space with the tall windows beyond. All those verticals, and the balance of darkness and light. Then I would let them in, and give them a couple of seconds to get into the space and look around; and then I would flick all the lights on as quickly as I could, and make the sun come out. People would sigh and stand slack-jawed with awe at the library, and I'd swell with pride in the thing for a couple of seconds before I gave them the script about it.