Elaine Brogan

I only started working for the NHS in January 2023 at Trafford General Hospital in the Education Library. Walking to the Main entrance, on my first day, past the clock tower and the blue plaque with the Ukrainian flag flying in front of them, I felt a sense of anticipation and excitement of being part of something extremely important.

Working at Trafford library is very different as we don’t get lots of users on a day to day basis but there is still a lot to do. I have a lot of daily tasks to perform such as reminding users by text and email about their overdue books. I supply articles and documents to users and other libraries and work on adding additions to the ambulance service repository. A lot of my day is spent on Open Athens, looking at user’s accounts to see whether they are eligible for access.

Before working at Trafford, I spent 12 years working for Manchester public library service and 7 working for Manchester University library service. Trafford is unique because it was the first NHS hospital, and there’s a particular calmness about it that is hard to describe. It’s full of the most amazing people doing a brilliant job every single day – essential and life-saving jobs. I’m not doing any life-saving but I like to think I’m playing my very small part in a big machine.

If I wasn’t working in a library I would be an artist as I do quite a bit of paper art in my spare time, particularly related to mid-century modern. I also have a degree in landscape Architecture so maybe I would have been one of them!

Illustration: Lucy Waterworth