The 1st of April often marks the start of a new financial year. The History Society has in its collection the Annual Report of the Chief Librarian for the year 1st April 1948 to 31st March 1949. The Chief Librarian at this time was Fred Taylor. The report was published on behalf of the Borough of Keighley Libraries and Museum Committee, headed by the Mayor of Keighley, Alderman J. H. Wright.
At this stage the town’s library services covered the Central Library on North Street, the Children’s Library, and branch libraries at Haworth, Morton, Oakworth, Oldfield, Oxenhope, Riddlesden and Stanbury. Across all the libraries, almost 82,000 books were available to browse and borrow. There were nearly 535,000 books loaned to readers over the year.
One of the most in demand titles over the year was Winston Churchill’s account “The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm”, published in 1948 and the first instalment in what was ultimately a six-volume series. Other popular titles included World War Two personal histories “Winged Dagger” by SAS Commander Roy Farran and “The Wooden Horse” by prisoner of war Eric Williams.
The outside of the Central Library was given a fresh lick of paint and fluorescent lighting was installed internally. Another key event of the year was the re-establishment of a children’s library, that section having been closed in 1943. The full report can be found on the History Society’s Flickr site.
The images show a portrait of Chief Librarian Fred Taylor, a picture of the Library from a 1950s Lilywhite postcard, and the cover of the Annual Report. All of the images come from the John Normington Collection, donated to Keighley and District Local History Society by John’s daughter Liz Hornby in September 2021.
John attended Ingrow Primary School and later won a scholarship for Keighley Boys’ Grammar School. His first job was at Keighley Library, where he remained (except for a break for National Service in 1947-49) until taking early retirement in March 1984. He was made Chief Assistant (Deputy) in 1953 having studied at the Leeds School of Librarianship. He ultimately became a lecturer himself in Cataloguing and Classification. He worked alongside local historian Ian Dewhirst for many years.
