By Ibrahim Sulaiman Jama’are
Malam Isah was the first librarian I knew in this world. (Note that if I were from one of the highly sophisticated scholarly families that abound in the North, that wouldn’t have been the case. Or if I had been brought up by my paternal grandfather, who was an accomplished Qur’an memorizer and a local malam who spent all his time in Zubo, a village just a few kilometers away from Jama’are.)
Malam Isah was the chief librarian of Government Arabic College, Jama’are (GAC), formerly known as Teachers’ College (TC).
I can vividly remember how Malam was passionate about teaching us how to use his library and, of course, how to navigate reference books such as encyclopedias—books we were handling for the first time as intellectual toddlers.
Malam Isah knew how to balance it all. He was conscious of the fact that we, as teenagers, were just at the beginning of our academic journey. Therefore, he needed to manage us in a way that made the library feel like a haven, a space worth visiting at least during our free periods. At the same time, he ensured we adhered to the rules, particularly maintaining absolute silence. Malam Isah was indeed tactful in this regard. Unlike other librarians we later encountered in colleges and universities, he distinguished himself through his unique approach to managing young library users. His soft method of correcting unbecoming behavior, especially among teenagers like us, earned him the title “The Most Friendly Librarian.”
One example of his approach was that whenever he noticed a student misbehaving in the library, he would silently move toward them and point at one of the rules posted on the library wall, subtly alluding to the fact that they were breaking—or about to break—a library rule. This was an extraordinarily soft and friendly approach, which I believe he employed because he understood that we needed to be trained on proper library etiquette. He knew that cultivating a habit of library usage would benefit us greatly in our academic and professional careers. To God be the glory, his efforts paid off, and they continue to help us to this day.
What later shocked me was when I realized that Malam Isah was not a highly certified person in the conventional sense (I doubt if he even had a high school certificate). Yet, his professionalism in managing the library and its users equaled—if not surpassed—that of the highly certified librarians we later encountered in our academic journey.
To say the least, Malam Isah inspired us. He taught us how to use a library. He trained us to see the library as our friend. This mindset shaped us, unlike many of our contemporaries who saw the library as a dungeon rather than a haven. As a result, we became accustomed to it and cherished it!
Allah ya jikan Malam Isah librarian, yasa ya huta.