A、Jessica spends lots of money in buying DVDs. B、Jessica used to borrow the classics during her school time. C、Most of children’

M: What do you think is the most important part in the work of librarians?
W: Good contact with the people who come to the library, which I think encourages reading, knowledge, you have to stay up to date with the latest books, and of course to read, read and read.
M: What do you like most and what do you like less in your work?
W: I like to read books and recommend those that I liked. I don’t like to lend DVDs and see that they get more and more popular at the expense of books.
M: What specific kinds of books did you enjoy reading when you were young?
W: I seldom borrowed the classics because we had to read them in school during the regular year. I’ve always loved murder mysteries, a lot of poetry from World War I. We just read about anything we could get our hands on, and I was lucky to have parents that didn’t restrict what we read.
M: Among children’s books, are there some older classics that continue to be popular today?
W: Anything Disney made a movie of. That gave a lot of publicity to some good books. The Tom Sawyer, adventure-type things: Agatha Christie for some of the sixth graders. Of course, families that read together often pick Heidi, Treasure Island—just good children’s books. Interestingly, with the advent of TV, they don’t have to put those long descriptions of some fantastic place in books anymore because the kids have already seen it on TV. So in one of these old classics, like Robinson Crusoe, the author may go on and on and on about the trees and the beach and the way the waves came in. They don’t need to do that anymore, because the kids know what a jungle looks like. That’s changed some children’s literature. They’re not as long and much more action-oriented. Not a lot of philosophizing. A much faster pace is expected of those books.
M: How do libraries fit in the 21st century digital world?
W: We will see more computerization of libraries that will influence many processes—registration, ordering books, the online connection between libraries that allows to ’import’ a book from another library when you don’t have it in your own, etc. We already see more and more libraries with their own websites and online catalogs, which for example enable readers to check out at home what new books arrived at the library.
M: Thanks, Jessica, and greetings to all the librarians that will celebrate the National Library Week next week.
6. According to Jessica, what is the most important part of a librarian’s work?
7. What was Jessica fond of reading when she was young?
8. What do we learn about children’s literature today?
9. According to Jessica, how do libraries fit in the digital world?
10. What do we learn from this part of the interview?