Librarian who put books behind Boris Johnson says message was for school | Libraries

The school librarian who stacked the shelves behind Boris Johnson’s podium with titles including The Twits, Betrayed and The Subtle Knife has admitted that she never intended the message for the prime minister, but for the management of the school from which she resigned in February.

The former librarian at Castle Rock school in Coalville, Leicestershire, rose to viral fame earlier this week when Johnson addressed children preparing to return to classrooms from the school’s library. Behind him, the books on display which also including Betrayed, Resistance, Exodus and Fahrenheit 451 – appeared to be sending a subtle message about the prime minister and his government.

But the librarian in question, who has asked not to be named, said that she set up the display six months ago in a pointed message to the management of Castle Rock school.

“I actually feel a little bit sorry for the prime minister because it wasn’t ever intended for him – I did it as a message for the school management before I left in February,” she told the Huffington Post. “It just became untenable to carry on working there because of the lack of support I had, and I was left with no choice but to resign. I decided to leave them a big message during my last week. They obviously never actually noticed, and it went untouched for six months.”

Speaking to the Guardian on Friday, the librarian said she only realised what was going on when her son showed her a picture of Johnson’s address, and she saw all the books were still there.

“In my last week I put them up so anybody who looked and took it in would see I’d had enough. I laid it all out – The Subtle Knife, Betrayed, The Glass House. I left on the Friday and thought, ‘I’ve said my piece, job done, walk away.’ It was a little bit bizarre when it all came out. Now they’ve noticed,” she said.

The librarian said that at the time of her departure in February, the school library “wasn’t really used as a library anymore” but being requisitioned as a classroom or a “dumping ground” instead. “I was getting absolutely no support, I was just in there on my own with up to 90 kids running riot. It was just horrendous,” she said.

She remains adamant about the importance of school libraries. “For reading for pleasure and for literacy, they’re invaluable,” she said.

While nine in 10 of English schools have access to a designated library space, this falls to 67% in Wales and 57% in Northern Ireland, according to a report last year by the librarian body Cilip. Schools with a higher proportion of children on free school meals are more than twice as likely not to have access to a designated library space. The report also noted that employment terms for library staff fall below national standards, with low pay and little investment in professional development and training. Cilip, supported by authors and MPs, has long campaigned for all schools to have a library.

“There is a wealth of evidence that shows that adequately funded, staffed school libraries deliver enhanced learning outcomes, better results and a better quality of life for those who have access to them,” Cilip chief executive Nick Poole said on Friday.

He praised the work of school librarians during the pandemic: “When schools had to ‘go remote’ during Covid-19, it has been the school librarians that have stepped up, supported teachers in making use of collaborative tools and helped develop online course materials to support remote teaching and learning.”

In a statement to the Huffington Post, Julia Patrick, CEO of the Apollo Partnership Trust that runs Castle Rock school as an academy, confirmed the librarian had resigned in February and said the library has not been used for five months. “The senior management there were unaware of any ‘covert message’ left through the arrangement of books,” she added.