Find out about your local librarians!
What is your name? Ottilie Gabrielle Smith
Which library(s) do you work at? Kilbirnie, Newtown, Island Bay and Miramar!
What’s the best thing about being a librarian? Reading picture books to kids of all ages (librarians and parents included!).
Favourite book? Oh how can you expect a librarian to answer that? But probably Northern Lights, Cliff McNish’s Doomspell Trilogy, Harry Potter, or for ‘adults’, most things by F Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) or Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness).
When I read I like to….? Sit snuggled up on the window seat at home with my best friend Vincent, lots of cushions, and soon, a cat.
If you wrote a book, what would it be about? Probably something about what it means to be a human being, or the mischievous mysterious lives of cats.
If I wasn’t a librarian, I would be a …? Famous concert pianist and teacher (one day maybe!).
Favourite food? Probably olives. Or pasta. Olives in pasta! Or dark dark dark dark dark chocolate.
Favourite place in the world? Anywhere with beautiful views and beautiful people! But somewhere that I have been, a little town called Porrentruy, Switzerland where my Dad grew up, probably takes the cake (they do make amazing cakes there).
My dream library would have…? A cat! No, many cats! House-trained of course, maybe even ones specially trained to fetch/shelve books! A delicious famous restaurant/café right next door, books stacked as high as the eye can see (or higher!), with ladders on wheels to move along the shelves (think of Mr Olivander’s wand shop in Harry Potter), secret passageways to secret areas of the library found only by pulling the right book at the right angle out of the shelf, natural sunlight streaming through skylights above enormous ornate sofas piled with hundreds of cushions, and, of course, all the books in the world!
