RETIRED Malvern librarian Frances Williams flies to Southern India this weekend to help at a library she worked at 18 years ago.

Miss Williams, now aged 84, whose career as a librarian has taken her all over the world, has been asked if she will go back to help with cataloguing thousands of books using the Dewey Decimal system.

Miss Williams, whose career as a librarian included a stint at Malvern Public Library in the 1960s, worked at the Church on the Rock Theolog-ical College library near Madras on the South East Coast of India in the 1980s and set up its catalogue system.

"They've asked me if I can organise all their new donated books. I don't think they realise how old I am," said Miss Williams.

She explained that the Dewey Decimal system uses numbers rather than letters to organise books, which is easier in Indian libraries where there are different alphabets as well as different languages.

"I'm looking forward to the trip. It's lovely to be asked and I'm lucky that I'm fit enough to go," said Miss Williams, who will spend a month in India, flying home at the beginning of February.

She hopes to catalogue around 3,000 books and train a member of the college staff in the Dewey System.

One thing she wants to do is visit some of the villages on the coast not far from the college. They are close to areas affected by the 2004 Tsunami.

"The villagers were always so friendly. I used to go for walks along the coast there and I'm anxious to find out how they all are. I think some of them may have lost fishing boats," said Miss Williams.

She said: "A lot of people think working in a library is dull but I've been lucky and had the most interesting career. I've worked in Canada, India, Uganda, Cameroon. It's nice to think I can be useful."