This year, we have joined by Ms Jones as our new College Librarian.

“I have been a librarian for over 10 years now, starting off in public libraries and then six years ago moving into school libraries. My role before this was Head Librarian at Warwick School, Warwickshire. Even though I enjoyed my time there and worked with some amazing students, the commute was way too long. When I saw Cheltenham College was recruiting a new College Librarian I jumped at the chance, being able to work for such a wonderful school and much closer to home was too good an opportunity to miss. Very luckily for me – I got the job!

We have the most beautiful library at College but I do have some future plans. I have already started to make the book stock a lot more diverse. I have been working hard with Heads of Departments to develop increasingly engaging reading lists for each subject. My passion is reading promotion – I have been reading teenage and children’s fiction constantly for the last 10 years and I love to share that knowledge with students. I cannot wait to get beyond this COVID time so that I can have many more groups and individuals into the library. I believe school libraries are living breathing spaces that need to be filled with people as well as books, not just to work in but also to relax in and they can be a wonderful safe haven for many young people.

I began the role of College Librarian in September and my first priority was to make the library safe. We have introduced a one way system, a three day quarantine area for returned books, created socially distanced areas in the library, made the decision only to allow library staff to take books on/off the shelves, developed and trained students and staff in a new ‘Click and Collect’ system and limited the numbers coming into the library at any time. We have an amazing team here in the library and this couldn’t have been achieved without their fantastic efforts. We are all looking forward to getting beyond this pandemic and being able to bring some sense of ‘normal’ back.

One thing I would ask of any parent when it comes to reading and their children is to please keep talking to your children about books and what they are reading. Christmas is a great time for buying books and I will be getting a new reading list out to parents by the end of this term but please also chat to your sons and daughters about their books, how they are feeling about reading and never give up trying to find that ‘one’ book that can completely change how they feel about reading.”

Ms Jones, College Librarian