Maligned, abused, crushed almost to death by public austerity, public libraries are being forced to take creative measures to kindle the interest of an attention-deficient public. The library ticket, alongside the loyalty card three stamps shy of a free coffee, has become something that sits in the wallets of many but may never have been given a second thought. But some London boroughs have been cheering up their passes and the diversity of designs is suprising. Here are some of the most eye-catching:
1. CROYDON, EALING, HARROW and HOUNSLOW
How many councils does it take to make a good library card? Four, evidently. Cultural Community Solutions manages library services on behalf of Croydon, Ealing, Harrow and Hounslow commissioned illustrator Jackie Morris to create these wonderfully engaging cards for their readers. They’re so good in fact that they’ve already been written about, which surely says something of their quality, because remember we are after all talking here about library cards.
2. BRENT
Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the most interesting cards on offer around London are those designed for children and young adults. Or maybe I should say designed by children and young adults. Brent council took the initiative in 2013 by holding a competition for local pupils to create new designs. This beautifully-designed card, packing all the punch of African-patterned fabric, was the winner of the 14-and-over category. Less inspired boroughs would do well to learn from this by drawing on the pools of young talent they’re each incubating.
3. REDBRIDGE
Another school-age competition winner here, only this time the card design takes the form of an abstract skatepark. A cheeky restyling of Redbridge Council logo suggests the plante de choix of burgeoning street artists everywhere. This is a reflection of a side of London often overlooked. Good on Redbridge for allowing it (whether they knew it or not). Children’s illustrator Nick Sharratt also lent some illustrations for the younger children’s cards but the home-grown talent outstrips the professional here.
4. HACKNEY
A snapshot of Ray Walker’s Dalston Lane mural lights up Hackney’s library card and reflects well the borough’s multicultural heritage which survives in spite of the elaborate facial hair and branches of Foxtons that threaten to gentrify and softly emblanden the heart and soul of the place.. A great library card!
5. KENSINGTON & CHELSEA
Stylish, playful and well aware that that is exactly what they mean to be, this one of a set of cards reflects an area of London that is in full control of its sense of identity. With an almost overwhelming total of 11 different library cards to choose from, Kensington and Chelsea is making no bones about not doing things by halves. Subtle references to the area’s attractions by way of photographs of (not pictured here) dinosaurs (Natural History Museum) and teddy bears (the biannual Teddy Bears festival) are a nice touch. This is one of two cards featuring graffiti, showing how the borough has sloughed off its hoary image and is now bodaciously down with the kids.
6. ENFIELD
The first public libraries of Rome were housed in the public bath houses. And here Enfield Council have developed a library card reminiscent of the fluted Ionic columns that would have loomed over those nascent collections. No? Well maybe it’s supposed to be evocative of the sleeve of an Arcade Fire album that shares its name with John Kennedy Toole’s early novel The Neon Bible (ie a book)? Well OK, so it’s probably not channelling anything in particular, but it’s still a neat design.
7. LAMBETH
It’s hard to be engaging without being patronising, especially when it comes to children. Lambeth council has opted to play it safe with this bright and breezy design taken from Lucy Cousins’ popular series of books in which the titular mouse tries things out for the first time. In this instance Maisy goes to the library. Perhaps there’s something akin to irony here, insofar as some children would first have to go to a library before they could read a book encouraging them to go to the library for the first time.
8. HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM
In Soviet Hammersmith, the library book borrows you! This design typifies the traditional library card, which probably explains why I got such blank smiles when I said I was writing an article on the subject. Like the before shot in a shampoo advert, this is dull and lifeless and included here only by virtue of some empty nostalgia for the no-frills cards that were all the rage back in the 1990s. But maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh on it. Sure, this type of card is not exactly beautiful but it does its job just fine and it comes with no fancy/useless widgets and/or bunting (see entry #10).
9. SOUTHWARK
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library,” said maze-obsessed Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. Though almost as poster-ific as the ubiquitous “Keep Calm and do x” guff, it’s nevertheless a delight to see a quotation from an actual book on Southwark’s library card. Incidentally, Borges also imagined that London would be a “red and tranquil labyrinth”. Two out of three ain’t bad. (NB Southwark has recently updated their card design so the one featured here is now rare and getting rarer).
10. LEWISHAM
It’s often said that it’s the little things which make life worth living, and when I first moved to London I was happier than I should have been to receive a library card which came with a detachable Clubcard-esque key fob accompaniment. These fobs act as a compact secondary library card that is marginally more convenient to carry around. Lewisham council has gone one step further by including not only a key fob but also a handy, albeit slightly naff, bookmark. Blue sky (ahem) thinking at its best.
So what does the future hold for the library card? Libraries are notoriously slow to change with the times but even they must eventually give way to the weight of the future (or is that the present?). With the ever-multiplying list of tasks that can be performed on mobile devices it makes sense that the traditional card will be phased out in favour of technological alternatives. But before they are lost to us forever it seems they have emerged for a brief moment from their boring old husks to give us a splash of transient colour and pattern, fluttering by briefly before disappearing forever.
- Of course London is just one city, and libraries around the world will have been dusting themselves down for 21st-century users. Please tweet snaps of your favourite cards to @guardianbooks, with the hashtag #librarycards, and we’ll collect the best in another article
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