Lucy Cheng, Giggleswick School’s librarian, has had an interesting and multifaceted career, ranging from the travel industry to managing exhibitions at the Cambridge University Library. She was born in Taiwan and at 12 years old moved with her family to Hawaii, where she spent the rest of her childhood and university years. After achieving her BA in Art History, she was later awarded an MSc in Library and Information Studies at the University of Hawaii. 

Like so many young adults, she wanted to leave where she grew up and explore what the wider world had to offer. She managed to secure a job in the travel industry in Seattle for a short time and for a couple of years was sent to work at their London office. Relocating once again, Lucy found herself in Barcelona where she lived and worked for while, after which she returned to the UK to retrain as a book conservator. 

Newly qualified in 2008 with an MA in Book Conservation, Lucy was employed by Cambridge University, where she formed part of the team in the university library focusing on conserving fragments from the Cairo Genizah. This involved her cleaning, relaxing, repairing and sometimes piecing together manuscript fragments dated from the 11th to the 19th century. It was a contracted position which she worked on for around three years. Following this project, she was hired on a permanent basis and gradually moved into a role where she managed all of the library’s exhibitions. Lucy adds: ‘one of the most exciting aspects of the job was taking valuable items from the Cambridge University Library to different exhibitions worldwide, for example to Israel, Italy, France and Belgium. Often two business class seats were booked on transport - one for me and one for the artefact and I had to fasten a seatbelt around them due to their precious nature.’

The librarian feels that reading for young people is invaluable, she says that ‘without physically travelling, books allow you to see the world. They can tell you anything you want to know, and whatever you absorb eventually becomes part of you.’