It was a room of a hundred thousand windows each one looking out onto a different world

I could quite easily rob a library. It's one of the only places I would happily rob. Whenever I go the urge to sweep every book in the YA section into the hood of my hoodie or under my hoodie preggo style is unbearable. I CONFESS. I am a book lover, a bookworm if you will. I can read a whole book in a day and forget to breathe. Skip meals and construct a soundproof bubble around me so when my mum tells me to tidy my room for the hundredth time, her voice simply bounces off me. Useful. 


"You can start reading pink books now." BAM. I made it. Straight to the top. The top row of books in the school library were mine all mine. You see the pink books were the clever books, the books with the dramatic plots, small words, no pictures, LOTS of pages. Clearly these books were only readable by those who were strong mentally and could take the tragedies and heart racing dramas. I was prepared. I was excited. JACQUELINE WILSON WAS MINE. Corgi Yearling? KMT. Drop that Yearling and place a Corgi single in my hands. Eat your heart out Biff Chip and Kipper. The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Eat cake. Louise is ready for the big ones.


The school library was good, for school. But it didn't beat our Shenfield Library, and was a speck of dust on the shoulder of Brentwood Library, and we knew it. When the librarian from Shenfield came to our school to tell us about the new books we knew our library was NOTHING compared to this. The Summer Reading Challenge was EVERYTHING. The ultimate competition (excluding the easter egg challenge obv) at school. Who would read the 6 books and get the medal? 1 book a week? Bring it. Commence the staring down at classmates you see at the library, getting their record stamped. 


Mum took us to the library about once a month when we were little. We'd be allowed 6 books out every time but when she caught me amongst the beanbags with a pile of 9 and already half way through one while flicking through the bottom shelf between pages, she gave in and helped me carry them to the desk. Occasionally I'd drop hints and borrow 7 books about cats. Never worked. Book Week at school was the best because we got a book voucher. I could BUY a book. The only other times I could actually own a book was my birthday and Christmas, or when we went on holiday. Mum would pack my bag and hide books and magazines for the plane. Amazing. The trouble with buying books was that I could never choose just one, and I couldn't buy more than one because it was too expensive and my book voucher couldn't take it. Back to the library.


Around 400 libraries are due to be closed by the government. That's MILLIONS of books gone. What are they going to do with them? Burn them? Turn them back into trees? When reading through tweets about the #savelibraries campaign this morning I stumbled across author Joanne Harris who was doing storytime and has let me use her tweets in this post. She told the story perfectly... 


Once upon a time, in a village like yours, there lived an old librarian. (A librarian is a person who studies hard to do a professional job and is paid relatively little. Bit like an independent bookshop owner.) Lots of people loved the library. (A library is a place full of books that anyone can borrow, for FREE. You just read them, and then bring them back. And every time you borrow a book, the author gets paid a tiny bit of money. This helps authors keep writing). 


Anyway, kids loved the library because the old librarian (who liked stories) used to have storytime every day. Students loved the library because they could do their homework there - and meet girls, or boys, who liked to read (totally the best kind). Old people loved the library, because they could meet their friends there, borrow books that had gone out of print, and have a cup of tea. Some old people lked to borrow books that their children deemed UNSUITABLE for them, like LOLITA. It was allowed. No-one stopped them. Readers' groups loved the library, because authors used to do readings there and answer questions about their books. And the librarian loved the library, because it was his life's work. It looked like a room full of old books, but actually it was a room of a hundred thousand windows, each one looking out onto a different world. 


But there was one person who didn't like the library. This was the Mayor of the village. It wasn't that the Mayor didn't like books. I fact, he owned several. He also had a library of his own - well, not quite a library. These were all the Mayor's own books, bought in bulk by his interior designer. None of them were ever lent out, and of course, there was no librarian. And the Mayor said: "The library is old. The roof leaks. It's outdated. There are books in there that haven't been taken out for years." And he said: "We have to make CUTS. We have no choice. It's either the library or the school, or the old peoples' home. Or the poor." And because the Mayor was Mayor (as well as being very rich), the villagers believed him, and really thought they had no choice. Some people suggested that the cuts might not be necessary as the Mayor seemed to think. Some even suggested taking the BANKS instead of the poor, but they were quickly dismissed as radicals. Some well-meaning people said that cutting POVERTY was surely the priority...but poverty has more than one face, thought the old librarian. Some things can't be bought with money. And so he protested - timidly. He was a very polite old librarian. But what can one old librarian do? "We can't fight PROGRESS," said the Mayor. "We have to TIGHTEN OUR BELTS." (In fact the Mayor's belt was already tight, but this was simply because he was very, very fat.) Things looked hopeless for the old librarian, and for all those in the village who couldn't afford a private library like the Mayor's. And that's enough storytime for now. Will the old librarian win? Or will it be the fat Mayor? Cont'd after lunch. Bring cake. x


Today is Save Libraries day. Libraries up and down the country are holding protests, having author talks and mass readings. The acts themselves may not save the libraries but the unison of people showing how much libraries are loved will definitely prove that they are SO needed. Now hush up, Scarlett is lost in America and I need to put myself in her shoes for the next few hours, amongst the beanbags... #savelibraries

Human intelligence one or many

Intelligence is most widely studied in humans. Animals and plants also are endowed with intelligence. Yes, plants do have intelligence. A botanist may vouchsafe that plant intelligence is the ability of plants to sense the environment and adjust their morphology, physiology, and phenotype accordingly. “Ability” is the phenomenal aspect of the intelligence. Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines. 

What really is intelligence?

The definition of intelligence is controversial. In 1994 the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray published a book The Bell Curve which soon became controversial and best-selling. The book's title comes from the bell-shaped normal distribution of intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in a population. The central argument in the book is that intelligence is influenced by both inherited and environmental factors. The book also argues that those with high intelligence, the “cognitive elite”, are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this is a dangerous social trend with the United States moving toward a more divided society similar to that in Latin America.

Much of the controversy concerned the parts of the book in which the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence and discuss the implications of those differences. The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are genetic; however, they wrote in chapter 13: "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences."  The introduction to the chapter more cautiously states, "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved."  Shortly after publication, many people rallied both in criticism and defense of the book.

“Mainstream Science on Intelligence”  was a public statement issued by a group of 52 academic researchers in the fields allied to intelligence testing. It was originally published in the Wall Street Journal in December 13, 1994. The statement says: “intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—catching on, making sense of things, or figuring out what to do.”

Intelligence tests

Intelligence tests are widely used in educational, business, and military settings due to their efficacy in predicting behavior. Intelligence quotient (IQ) is the number arrived at by dividing the mental age with chronological age and then multiplying with 100. The mental age is assessed through intelligence tests. Average IQ is 100. The IQ is correlated with many important social outcomes—individuals with low IQs are more likely to be divorced, have a child out of marriage, be incarcerated, and need long-term welfare support, while individuals with high IQs are associated with more years of education, higher status jobs and higher income. Intelligence is significantly correlated with successful training and performance outcomes, and IQ is the single best predictor of successful job performance.

Core of human intelligence or g

Charles Edward Spearman 

Specific abilities and G factor

There are many different kinds of IQ tests using a wide variety of test tasks. Some tests consist of a single type of task, others rely on a broad collection of tasks with different contents including visual-spatial, verbal, numerical tasks and asking for different cognitive processes such as reasoning, memory, rapid decisions, visual comparisons, spatial imagery, reading, and retrieval of general knowledge. The British psychologist Charles Edward Spearman found that a single common factor explained the positive correlations among different tasks of an intelligence test. Spearman named it g or "general intelligence factor". He interpreted it as the core of human intelligence that, to a larger or smaller degree, influences success in all cognitive tasks and thereby creates the positive manifold. This interpretation of g as a common cause of test performance is still dominant in intelligence tests.

Multiple intelligences

The American developmental psychologist Howard Earl Gardner proposed the theory of multiple intelligences based on studies not only of normal children and adults but also of gifted individuals called savants and prodigies and of persons who have suffered brain damage. This led Gardner to break intelligence down into at least eight different components: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic pertaining to body-movements, interpersonal, naturalist pertaining to environment, and existential. 

Howard Earl Gardner 

1. Logical/Mathematical intelligence: This area has to do with logic, abstractions, reasoning and numbers and critical thinking. While it is often assumed that those with this intelligence naturally excel in mathematics, chess, computer programming and other logical or numerical activities. Logical reasoning is closely linked to fluid intelligence and to general ability.

2. Spatial intelligence: This area deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye. Careers which suit those with this type of intelligence include artists, designers and architects. A spatial person is also good with puzzles.

3. Verbal/Linguistic intelligence: This area has to do with words, spoken or written. People with high verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates. They tend to learn best by reading, taking notes, listening to lectures, and by discussing and debating about what they have learned. Those with verbal-linguistic intelligence learn foreign languages very easily as they have high verbal memory and recall, and an ability to understand and manipulate syntax and structure. Verbal ability is one of the most g-loaded abilities.

4. Kinesthetic/Bodily intelligence: The core elements of the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are control of one's bodily motions and the capacity to handle objects skillfully. Gardner elaborates to say that this intelligence also includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses so they become like reflexes. In theory, people who have bodily-kinesthetic intelligence should learn better by involving muscular movement. They are generally good at physical activities such as sports or dance. They may enjoy acting or performing, and in general they are good at building and making things.

5. Musical intelligence: This area has to do with sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. People with a high musical intelligence normally have good pitch and are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Since there is a strong auditory component to this intelligence, those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture. Language skills are typically highly developed in those whose base intelligence is musical. In addition, they will sometimes use songs or rhythms to learn. They have sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, tone, melody or timbre.

6. a. Interpersonal intelligence:  Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand others. In theory, individuals who have high interpersonal intelligence are characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group.

6. b. Intrapersonal intelligence: This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. This refers to having a deep understanding of the self; what your strengths/ weaknesses are, what makes you unique, being able to predict your own reactions/emotions. Philosophical and critical thinking is common with this intelligence. Many people with this intelligence are authors, philosophers, and members of clergy.

7. Naturalistic intelligence: This area to do with nurturing and relating information to one’s natural surroundings. They become naturalists, farmers and gardeners.

8. Existential intelligence: Some proponents of multiple intelligence theory proposed spiritual or religious intelligence as a possible additional type. Gardner did not want to commit to a spiritual intelligence, but suggested that an “existential” intelligence may be a useful construct.

It seems that Gardner crystallized and categorized different facets of human intelligence into distinct types of intelligence. In individual with high general intelligence different abilities may develop in appropriate circumstances if properly motivated, supported and persevered.