Meet our friendly librarian Rudi
We sat down with one of our friendly librarians, Rudi, who looks after the Home Library Service for Bayside Libraries. Find out what her favourite book is and what she loves most about the library.
What is your favourite book as a child?
Charlottes Web by EB White. It just transported me to a magical place where animals spoke about the reality of their lives and I loved the main human character Fern. It’s about friendship, loyalty and tenacity. I remember being totally invested in all the characters. I wanted to be part of that world, to help, to laugh along as well as comfort them.
It’s a joyous book celebrating kindness. It was also the first book I read whereby I cried. I reread the book several times over the years and found messages that were lost on me as a young child. It’s a coming-of-age book as it follows Fern and the animals as they get older and how this maturity impacts on how they relate to each other. It’s beautifully written with much tenderness and contains some important life lessons without being preachy.
If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you?
Olivia Coleman! She is a brilliant and talented actress who has played a diverse range of roles, from receptionists to detectives to killers and of course to two different English Monarchs. She and I share the same sense of humour, we find humour in the ordinary as well as the absurd. We also would be useless at poker as both have very expressive faces.
Which Library Program or Service do you most like promoting to the community?
The Home Library Service - it is such a lovely way that people who cannot easily access the library can have items from our collection delivered. It can be DVDs, Books (including Large Print), audio books, and magazines.
It’s open to all Bayside residents who can’t get to the library because of their age, disability, poor physical or mental health, caring responsibilities or mobility problems. It’s also a lovely way to have a social interaction as the volunteers who deliver make time to have a chat. Volunteers can select reading materials based on the client’s individual taste and preference or if the client has a device at home, they can reserve items online themselves.
The wonderful volunteers are a friendly, familiar face and provide a useful check on the client’s safety and well-being.
The home library service is also accessible to those Bayside residents who are temporarily unable to visit our libraries due to illness or recuperation after an operation, we can deliver items till they get back on their feet.
