A congregation of leather clad librarians, including three Gosford City Council staff, have descended on country towns in New South Wales as part of the 1,200 kilometre Biblio Turismo 2008 motorcycle tour. Librarians from Ballarat, Grafton, Parkes, Manly, Blacktown and Mona Vale Councils also participated in the tour.
Biblio Turismo is the New South Wales public library event of the year, when librarians from across the State meet and visit public libraries over a three day period. Travelling by motorbike, participants use the event to help market public libraries.
As the third annual event, this year’s Turismo was held to coincide with Library Information Week from 22 to 25 May. Starting from Gosford, 13 bookish bikers visited libraries in Maitland, Dungog, Gloucester, Tamworth, Armidale, Dorrigo, Bellingen, Coffs Harbour, Nambucca Heads and Kempsey.
Gosford’s Library Services Manager, Alan Flores, said the three day event is a great way to break down the stereotype of librarians, and raise awareness about the great work public libraries do.
“With over one million books lent out each year, Gosford City Council is one of the biggest public library service providers in the country,” he said. “The tour not only tied in with celebrations for Library Week, but also provided an opportunity for rural staff to exchange information and network with bigger libraries.
“We aimed to reach libraries around morning tea, lunch, or afternoon tea time, so that some of the tour participants could take the library staff out for a coffee and a chat, while remaining participants could run the library for them.”
Alan Flores said 30 to 50 per cent of New South Wales residents are library members, but many people still believe the stereotype that all librarians are conservative people who wear the traditional horn rimmed glasses.
“Casanova, President Bush’s wife – Laura Bush, Karl Marx, the Brothers Grimm, Benjamin Franklin and Batgirl are just some of the many well known people who were librarians,” he said.
The tour takes a different route each year, and by 2010, having covered most of New South Wales, will hopefully visit Victoria.
Tour participants pay for their own expenses and volunteer their time to promote the work that librarians do.
Founded and organised by Gosford Library staff, previous Biblio Turismo tours have been so successful that they have received media attention from as far abroad as New York and Ireland.
For further information contact Alan Flores on
(02) 4325 8801
