Poetry Book Society

Giving the poetry of Scotland a physical, unique home gives it its special place in the culture - I'd say its rightful place, given Scotland's magnificent poetic heritage and its continuing poetic strength. Founded in 1984 by my predecessor, the poet Tessa Ransford, the Scottish Poetry Library is now housed in purpose-built, award-winning premises in Crichton's Close, off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The building is a poem in itself, a light, airy, contemplative space. The SPL is more than an elegant building, however, more even than the books and people it houses: it exists to serve the art of poetry, and to celebrate and nurture the poetry of Scotland in particular.

The books inside the building are not limited by geography or language: of course Scottish poetry, in all three native languages of Scotland, is at its core, and we endeavour to maintain that core collection as comprehensively as we can. We have over 5,000 items by poets in other European languages - many in bilingual editions - and beyond that, books from every continent, a total of nearly 40,000. We also have audio-cassettes, magazines, cuttings and a children's collection - all catalogued online.

Let me give you examples of what the books at the heart of our work allowed us to do over just one day. This morning, several of us were discussing - well, arguing passionately in fact - over the choice of poems for postcards that will be distributed all over Scotland around National Poetry Day in October - about 300,000 cards. This year's theme is ‘games', and we are including a foreign poet in what is usually a Scottish selection: it's Czes?aw Mi?osz, to mark his centenary year. (With support from the Polish Consulate General and the Polish Cultural Institute, we've also produced a splendid Mi?osz poster and have used it as the basis for schools workshops.) We had books all over the tables, with stickers in to mark our favourites.

The Assistant Librarian had some poem inquiries, as usual, through our popular ‘Lost for Words' service. When she found a poem that a reader had been looking for (Google is really not enough), she received an email: ‘Alas, the teacher left my school and I never did find "Dandie" again, though it was not for the lack of trying. Again, thank you, I feel I have just won the lottery!'

In the afternoon, we had 15 Danish teachers in for a session with our Education Officer and Edinburgh's Makar (poet laureate), Ron Butlin, hearing some Scottish poems and discussing how they might use a selection to provide stimulus and interest for their pupils.

And a group of German readers dropped in to see if we had any poetry by Donny O'Rourke, the Glaswegian poet who has had residencies in Nuremburg - and lo and behold, we had a bilingual edition of his poems for them to sit down with.

In between all these lovely activities, of course, were the less lovely ones: looking at the accounts with our book-keeper, and pondering how to keep our ‘frugal chariot' on the road. The SPL is foundation-funded by Creative Scotland, but an important contribution to our costs is made by the subscriptions of Friends of the SPL. An annual subscription is merely £25, but that can add up to a substantial amount.

The ongoing challenge is the re-structuring of our IT base, of which the outward and visible sign will be a newly designed website. The elements that have been extending our reach - the podcasts, our Facebook page, our lively Twitter feed (one of the top five in the Library world!) - will be more prominent, but also a lot of hidden resources will come to light, and a cornucopia of poems.

All of us who work at the SPL believe that poetry is a vital element of the life of the imagination. We take our cue from words by Patrick Geddes, inscribed on the Library's threshold: ‘by leaves we live'. The seven of us work hard and imaginatively to bring people and poems together: online, in the library, in schools, through other libraries and in care-homes; through books, through events, through passionate advocacy. Do seek us out if you find yourself in Edinburgh, or visit virtually. Our doors are open!

Robyn Marsack has been Director of the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh since 2000. She has degrees in English literature from Victoria University (New Zealand) and Oxford, and was formerly a publishers' editor, working for Carcanet Press and then freelance. She is also a critic and translator. She lives in Glasgow with her family.