Written by the Library team
The last few months have seen an upheaval and settling down of the library. Like the calm after the storm, it is still and quiet, unearthly in its silence. While libraries have always traditionally been associated with these very qualities, Bookworm has been the opposite. With a monthly calendar of workshops and events, the library is normally a place that is buzzing, a space of continuous exchange of thoughts and ideas, discussions, activities, and workshops.
And so, three months after reopening, five months into the pandemic, and many many days since we last had the library humming with activity, we are feeling the absence of voices, missing the sound of pages being turned, blocks being assembled in the green room, figures buried in large bean bags in the yellow room, and story times in the light orange room. 
We are missing visitors to the library; the after school hours when many would drop their heavy school bags in the front room and run in. We are missing the almost daily workshops and activities that used to bring in groups of children and enable their interaction with books.
The library has been quiet for many months now, the silence broken mainly by the story time videos enacted from time to time and the zoom sessions that require much shouting and argument about who is using which internet.
We have the occasional parent who comes in and borrows books.
But we are missing children in the library.
And we wondered if they were missing the library too, so we called some of our library members and asked them how they felt.
“We miss the books – lots and lots of books at Bookworm” said one child.
“I miss the ability to go and sit down in a corner and read all alone… and to take out books that I’ve always wanted to read.” said another.
Browsing through the shelves to find a book that they like, sitting in their favourite corner, reading and re-reading a book, are the little moments that are being fondly remembered. The little red car Bindi Su, a favourite where children sit and read a book or pretend that they are race car drivers, is definitely being missed. 
The displays we set up in the rooms also brought a sense of adventure for the children who visited. An older group of children remembered the tent set up in our light orange room. They particularly recall a morning when they slept inside the tent and pretended that they were camping overnight in the forest. They missed relaxing with a book in the cosiness of the tent.
Children enjoyed and looked forward to participating in workshops at Bookworm. They felt sad that they could not come to Bookworm to learn a new craft activity, listen to a Read Aloud or enjoy step-up-and-dance.
The existence of a children’s library without children, has made the team all the more determined to get as many books into the hands of children as possible. Boxes of books are being delivered to various schools and communities, and books are also being home delivered to different houses.
Activities are now being conducted over the internet, where possible. Online Pre School mornings, story time videos, guided drawing sessions and other online substitutes are enabling some engagement where before none was possible. It is also enabling a reaching out to places and people beyond the limits of a certain geographic location.
While we do not know when all this will end or if our present is the new normal, our hope is that one day when all seems quiet we will suddenly hear the sound of children, excited that they have found the book they are looking for or enthusiastically participating in one of our monthly calendar activities.
