In this digital age, where we’ll all speeding at breakneck pace down the information super highway, you can forget just how all-encompassing, useful and even comforting the Wellington Central Library. In my university days I used to spend hours here – and you still can’t beat grabbing a pile of month-old overseas fashion magazines and curling up in one of the armchairs when it’s wet and wild outside. It helps that the coffee and food at the in-house Clark’s Cafe is great, too.
…or more specifically the graphic novel section round the back. Picking one at random and having a leaf through has always been my go-to way of getting through those awkward 20-to-40 minutes gaps, to small to do anything proper but too long to just mess around on your phone, you can find yourself in in the central city between meetings or bits of work. Comics have been shown to be the most efficient form of media in terms of time consumption, so it’s a breeze to finish a whole book in that time (well, go over a hundred pages and there’ll be a problem) making the gap a culturally accomplished one.
You’ve got to get there early in the day because it fills up quickly, but the early rise (and it’s not that early; 9.30 most days) is worth it because there are power-points a-plenty and more than enough desk space, and, most especially, because of the quiet. Obviously it’s quiet, it’s a library, but because it’s right in the centre of town you can still make out the buzz of the bustling real world all around you. This is, at least for me, is the perfect hybrid. Quiet enough to work and concentrate but not that hideous, stark no-sound silence that tends to distract me even more with its bleakness.