As we welcome the news that Europe's largest public library is about to open in Birmingham, our friend and fellow Polari-ite, author Helen Smith has drawn my attention recently to a new kind of "superhero", if one hardly likely to be portrayed by the likes of Famke Janssen in Lycra - a librarian who is so lauded she has her own action figure!
Miss Nancy Pearl is indeed some kind of "hero". In this world of trendy, ten-second-memory, instant commentary, instant self-publishing, she has taken on the challenge of championing the far more gratifying world of books - to an American audience ostensibly more obsessed with reality TV and making complaints about nipples on telly than reading.
Starting with her native Seattle, where she became something of a local celebrity on radio and in the papers for her campaigns, she really caught the attention of the wider public with her advisory guides to good reading, snappily-titled Book Lust. Such was the attention she garnered by her dogged championing of often out-of-print titles that none other than the world-conquering Amazon agreed to re-publish six novels from her lists every year, in print and electronic formats!
As a former librarian myself, I applaud the lady's efforts in support of the (printed) written word. Too many libraries have tried to turn themselves into "one-stop-shops" for web-based information sourcing and research (glorified "internet cafés"), while running down their actual physical book collections. Miss Pearl speaks out - loudly - about redressing the balance in favour of the book itself as something to enjoy.
"The role of a librarian is to make sense of the world of information. If that's not a qualification for superhero-dom, what is?" - Nancy Pearl
Here's a most appropriate number as a tribute to the plucky Miss Pearl - what else but Marian The Librarian from The Music Man?
Nancy Pearl official website
