Gwyneth Perry cherishes seeing a person’s face light up when she hands them a book they’ve been frantically searching for or witnessing a child’s delight when they visit the library for the first time. This is what she loves about her profession as a librarian.
Other highlights of her daily routine emanate from receiving gracious compliments from library patrons. These two from boys aged 8 and 13 years old, made her heart melt.
“I’m learning to read. Thank you for this library. I love coming here. It’s a very nice place with nice books too.” The other one read; “stay this amazing library because I love to read, and this is one of two places I can get to read a book”.
The senior librarian’s typical workday starts when she arrives at the Weltevreden Park Library in Roodepoort at 7:45 a.m. to switch on the computers and Wi-Fi and help separate the non-fiction and Afrikaans books. Once that work is done, she completes the daily visitor statistics for the previous day.
At about 8:45 a.m., Perry enjoys her breakfast, and at 9 a.m., the library is ready to open and assist community members.
The first visitors to arrive are usually students. “For me, the highlights are always linked to people,” she says with a beam on her face after assisting a library member renew the return date of their books.
During a visit to Weltevreden Park Library to meet Perry for an interview, she is dressed in a red cardigan and black pants with comfortable shoes. She walks briskly and jumps at every turn to assist library patrons. When her phone rings, she politely excuses herself, while taking the call to assist the person on the other end.
Perry believes her profession is crucial in helping people locate and access information, whether online or from books.
“We have the skill to find information that’s not fake. Some of us were even trained in mobile literacy, so we can help people access apps,” she adds.
Her other responsibilities include registering new library members, creating monthly displays, running quarterly face-to-face and in-person holiday programmes for primary school students, and hosting a monthly Tea and Talk programme.
Perry is driven and motivated to keep things at the library interesting and fun. This is why she’s an active participant in digital library initiatives. She heads up two fun programmes at the library, such as Digital Story Time and Libraries Get Crafty.
She pre-records digital content, which is uploaded to the Joburg Libraries Facebook page. She also blogs for the City’s e-learning website.
Perry has been a bookworm her entire life. Despite her initial desire to be a teacher, she applied for a library assistant position at the Florida Library at 19, little did she know it would be the start of a career she would love for decades. She held the post between 1991 and 2001.
She worked at Horizon View Library from 2001 to 2004, before joining Weltevreden Park Library as a senior librarian for the first time in 2004. She left to work at Olivedale Library in 2015. Perry joined the Florida Library again in 2019, before heading back to Weltevreden Park Library last year.
“I’ve always loved books. So, I took a leap of faith, and it was the right move. I enjoy this career very much. There’s always something different. You never know who you’ll meet that day,” she notes.
Perry is grateful to have a good team of diligent people like her colleagues. “We work very well together; through that, we’re able to provide a good service to the community.”
Their vision is to make the Weltevreden Park Library a place where people feel happy. “We want people to say, ‘wow, that’s an excellent library.'”
As an avid reader, Perry enjoys nonfiction travel books, family sagas, or history and relishes visiting her family in the States. She is just as active in her personal life. Her other hobbies include quilting and running.
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi
13/05/2022