A Walk in Nature, Walks the Soul Back Home

Monday, 10th May 2021

For the first time in over 12 months, the LRC is turning out a display on site, with proper books and everything. Creating displays from posters and offerings from our book and DVD collections was a regular activity for all LRC staff. Displays were created to promote national holidays, awareness days, weekly and monthly national initiatives – basically anything worth celebrating we highlighted. During our work from home months, each staff member upgraded their tech skills and learnt how to create images and presentations online. This continued even once we returned to campus as we were still generally serving our students online rather than in person.

Now, however, we are welcoming our students back into the LRC. We are reclaiming our display boards and tables, and we are finally able to show support for these events in person – as well as online. We don’t want those new found skills to go to waste.

Our first display will cover one of the most important topics for our students. Mental Health Awareness Week starts today. It’s hosted by the Mental Health Foundation which has chosen ‘Nature’ as the theme for the 2021 campaign.

As Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Charity, explains “Nature is so central to our psychological and emotional health, that it’s almost impossible to realise good mental health for all without a greater connection to the natural world. For most of human history, we lived as part of nature. It is only in the last five generations that so many of us have lived and worked in a context that is largely separated from nature. And it is only since a 1960s study in the US found that patients who were treated in hospitals with a view of nature recovered faster, that science has started to unpack the extraordinary health benefits.”

(You can read more here).

Mental Health Awareness Week began 21 years ago and is an annual opportunity to get the UK focused on mental health, to start conversations with others about it and find ways to encourage positive mental health. Using nature as a theme is simply a starting point.

Surrey Wildlife Trust
“Surrey Wildlife Trust’s work inspiring people to love nature has never been more important. If we are to protect nature in the future we have to put people at the heart of it.” – Sir David Attenborough

Although most of us don’t have to venture far from our front door to find some sort of nature and wildlife, local habitats are struggling. There are 46 wildlife trusts around the UK which share the common goal of protecting wildlife and encouraging biodiversity. Surrey Wildlife Trust is no exception and has over 6500 hectares of land, which is primarily made up of nature reserves. Over the years, road and other man-made developments, and a lack of funding combined with poor land management has made our local wildlife vulnerable. Around a third of our local species are either extinct or at risk of extinction.

SWT has a plan. It already carefully manages 80 nature reserves (click here to see the map of Surrey nature reserves) but has realised this is not enough to make certain species thrive. There is now a five year strategy in place with the aim of creating a ‘Living Landscape’ – a plan to connect the nature reserves by green corridors. This strategy does mean working in partnership with landowners, public bodies and local communities but the outcome will hopefully be the creation of larger habitats.

Surrey Wildlife Trust has a programme for outdoor learning. There are classes for school children of all ages as well as a wide-range of courses for adults. There are even classes under the heading ‘Health and Wellbeing’, reinforcing the suitability of The Mental Health Foundation choosing Nature as it’s theme for the Mental Health Awareness Week.

The Nibbies 2021
The British Book Awards – the Nibbies – are being held virtually this week on Thursday 13th May. There has been a lot to celebrate this last year for the book trade. Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller, said: “In a year dominated by Covid-19, social distancing rules, and lockdowns, the 2021 British Book Awards will surely showcase the trade’s incredible resilience in the face of the biggest disruption seen since the Second World War.”

There are several categories (see shortlists here) but the main fiction titles are:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (see review below)
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Book Review
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Rating: 4.5/5

“Because, Nora, sometimes the only way to learn is to live”

Nora Seed believes that her life is not worth living any more and that no one will miss her if she were to just simply disappear. A lifetime of missed opportunities and regrets, compounded by depression, results in Nora taking drastic action and finding herself in The Midnight Library – a holding place somewhere between life and death.

This library is full of books about Nora with each book representing a life that, had she made a different choice at any one time, Nora could have led. Each time she begins to read one of the books, Nora finds herself in that life, each time wondering if this life is better than the one she has actually lived? If she finds The One she can choose to continue to live it.

This is such a charming and heart-warming story as we follow Nora trying out her different lives to find the perfect fit. She starts by looking at her big regrets, the decisions that she feels were the real life changing ones but then she delves into the smaller, seemingly less important ones. At first it’s nothing more than curiosity but with each book, Nora starts to discover what it means to live.

– Alison

Displays

A few weeks ago, we did a presentation to accompany a College tutorial on mental health with a focus on #AskTwice. Click here to view.

We love…

Gillian Green, formerly of Piatkus Books, commenting on the power of Netflix. She said in a tweet this week that her legacy at the publishing house would be the books of “J.D. Robb (and introducing readers to the world of vampire romances!) And all along it was buying Julia Quinn’s wonderful eight book Bridgerton series…”. The backlist of the Julia Quinn series helped parent company Hatchette boost revenue by almost a fifth in the first quarter of 2021.

Students

Book Loans
Worried about fines during lockdown? No problem. All loans have been renewed and fines waived whilst the LRC was closed. Book returns can now be returned to the Library Desk or renewed by email/telephone.

E-Book of the Week

Each week, the LRC will be highlighting an e-book that we feel will be of special interest to certain students. This week, it’s an e-book for our Art & Design students.

Simply click the Brooklands College Login link here and access the book using your College student ID and password.

Tip of the Week

Access our virtual library online
You can search for e-books on the library catalogue or directly through our e-book providers.. Click on the Shibboleth login if requested and select Brooklands College. If you have any problems please do not hesitate to contact us at library@brooklands.ac.uk.

Heritage Online | Proquest | VleBooks

LRC website
The LRC website contains links to our resources, our online catalogue and is full of information about LRC use, plus there are book reviews, links to our displays and other items of interest. It is only available to College members (sorry) and can be found through links on the LRC Google Classroom, and on the staff and student intranets.

LRC Google Classroom page
Tutors have been invited to join the Classroom and will be passing the joining code on to their students. It’s full of links to resources, and helpful advice and tips.

Please contact us at library@brooklands.ac.uk if you need support with e-books, e-resources or anything else.

Follow @BCLibraryWA