Libraries - oldest and newest

I've written before about Scotland's oldest public lending library at Innerpeffray in Perthshire, but it's timely to mention it again for several reasons. Firstly, it reopened to the public last week for the visiting season, and so, with the scent of Spring drawing us all out of darkened rooms again, I'd like to highlight it as a wonderful destination for a day out - snowdrops, the river Earn, a ruined castle, and antiquarian books to pore over. You can read about the library's history in The First Light by George Chamier. As a limited edition it's not the cheapest of books, but there's a copy you can read while on site.

Secondly, with all the threatened library closures, there couldn't be a more fitting celebration of the value of books and libraries than this building, its book collection and in particular the ledger which shows the wide social scope of its borrowers over three hundred years. It was a lamp of learning and democracy after some dark times.

And thirdly, I've just been commissioned by BBC Radio Four to write a play set at Innerpeffray, which will draw on its history and significance although set in contemporary times. A great creative challenge which I look forward to with great excitement and the usual amount of trepidation about whether I can do the subject justice.

Not all is doom and gloom in the contemporary library world. My local community library opened at the new Breadalbane School Campus just before Christmas with a calendar of author events, storytelling, masses of space and light, and BOOKS!

Innerpeffray Library

"...that jewel inlaid in the fields of Perthshire,

the reading-room at Innerpeffray - "

from Robert Crawford's poem 'The Digital Library, St Andrews', written for National Poetry Day 2007

Jewel-like and well hidden, this library near Crieff, where I was on Saturday, enchants both with its location on a bend in the River Earn with a Roman road marching past, and by its incredible collection of ancient books. Scotland's oldest free public lending library, it opened here in 1763, and to scan the ledger with the records of the borrowers, where they walked from and what they borrowed, is to appreciate the hunger for knowledge.

Visitors these days can't borrow, but they can browse and whether it's the content of the books or the intrigue of printing, paper-making and binding that draws you in, there's a wealth on offer. The enthusiasm of keepers Colin and Ann Edgar will keep the mysteries opening with match-box sized bibles, unique books covering subjects as diverse as astrology, demonology, chiromancy, spiritualism, war, politics, law, agriculture, horticulture, natural history, history and literature. And in a number of languages. A personal favourite is the "Historie of foure footed beastes" by Edward Topsell, London 1607, from which the Mantichora above is extracted.