A big box arrived at the library this morning and much to Linda’s annoyance it was addressed to me. “Oh, what is it?” she asked, crowding me as I cut through the copious brown tape used to seal it.

“I think it’s the language books.”

“Oh.” Her interest evaporated. What did she expect? Baking equipment?

The top layer was old shredded newspapers but underneath lay the jewels of our new International Collection. I always give it capital letters when I think of it. I messaged Alex that it had arrived and he, of course, reminded me to log them with his replacement on the Inter Library Loan desk. We’d have to share our new found wealth of foreign language books with other libraries countrywide.

There was a brilliant range of dual language readi...

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