AUGUST 2023 – The Library Campaign

Welcome to our newsletter round up of August’s UK libraries news!

LIBRARIES WEEK GOES GREEN

Time to plan ahead for Libraries Week (2-8 October). And this year’s theme is green. Libraries, of course, are the ultimate recycle and re-use resource. Services – and Friends groups – have been doing exciting development work, ranging from clothes swaps to repair workshops, gardening to education projects. Think about what you could publicise!
This annual national (England & Wales) promotion is a great free resource. You can download eye-catching posters and social media templates (some you can customise with your own message), plus loads of advice on planning and publicity. You’ll be backed by a national campaign, and you can put your own activities on a nationwide map. Follow on Twitter @librariesweek, Instagram @librariesweek and share via #GreenLibrariesWeek.
Check out the Libraries week website here

GOOD NEWS FROM ROTHERHAM

Rotherham Council’s overview and scrutiny board recently approved plans to redevelop the town centre with a new complex, including the delivery of a new central library. While the existing library was, we believe, purpose built, possibly in the sixties, it is a little away from the centre of town and over ten years ago ,when we visited, was showing its age.
The new Central Library will be relocated to the site of the existing Guardian Centre, which is part of the Markets complex, and will include a café, meeting rooms, flexible gallery space, and a maker’s space. The Markets complex as a whole will get a serious makeover, particularly with a view to connecting it to residential communities to the east of the town centre and the 3000+ student and academic population immediately adjacent to it.

DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 1

Democracy, local authority style, continues to need close watching. In the Wirral, a plan to abandon several libraries to “the community” was – everyone thought – overturned this year after huge protests. But hold on… the council has now decided to sell off 23 “assets” to pay off a £12m government emergency loan. And that includes TWO libraries, at Bromborough and Seacombe, despite community efforts to save them. The decision was made at part of a meeting where press and public were excluded. Opposition councillors are crying foul. The council says it has no choice…

DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 2

Call Wirral a desperate council in financial peril. Not so in Redditch, where the library authority (Worcestershire County Council) is happy to support the demolition of the popular library in a costly “town improvement” plan that would replace it by…er, an empty square offering nothing to do but spend money in cafes. WCC carried out a consultation that found a solid 72.3% opposed.
The number of replies, said WCC, made the consultation fully representative of Redditch’s population. But, it said, that was no reason to respect the result! The people who didn’t reply must be taken not account, and must be assumed to be pro-demolition! Mental gymnastics worthy of an Olympic medal.

DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 3

On to Hendon, in Barnet. Here a huge campaign saved the famous listed library from being given to Middlesex University (MDX) for a business centre. Or so people thought. It was part of a massive “hub” plan that would transform a whole town centre into a MDX campus of lecture halls and student accommodation. Locals opposed the planning application 100%. So did all the Labour councillors, in opposition at the time.
Come the local elections, with the “hub” a key issue. Labour took over. It had a clear mandate, you’d think. It promised to reconsider and consult. It promised to keep the original library for full public use. The outcome? A “hub” as big and ugly as ever – with the 1930s library and town hall no longer proudly free-standing but lumped together with glassy fill-in stuff and annexed to MDX! Plus big lumps of the library building given to… MDX.
Ah, says Labour Barnet, we only promised to save the original library. Only the 1970s extensions are to be given away, although they were long used by the library. Civic centre: 0. MDX: big win. The fight (wearily) goes on.

TWO CHEERS FOR CHESHIRE EAST

Cheshire East Council has revised its plans for library services cuts across the borough, following feedback from local communities. In July the council launched a public consultation on proposals to reduce the current opening hours of libraries across the borough so that all sites are closed for at least 1.5 days during the week.

Having considered the feedback received during the consultation, the council is now proposing to:Deliver the half day closure by opening later or closing earlier for four days of the week, instead of closing for a full half day. The timings will be based on individual site usage data.
Reinstate 31 hours per week of opening hours across the borough, targeted at sites where usage and demand is greatest.The combination of these proposals means that the libraries which are currently open each weekday will continue to be, with one of those days being a half-day opening.
We applaud the Council for listening to the feedback they got in the consultation. However for the majority of library branches this still means 8 to 10 hour reductions in opening hours (including Wilmslow in the picture below) but all will still be accessible on all the days of the week that they currently open. Ironically one of the two libraries with no effective change is Alderley Edge where a campaign to stop closure was successful some five or six years ago.

DOWN IN DEVON

Friends of Great Torrington Library are leading a spirited campaign to save Devon’s mobile libraries. Such services often have Cinderella status. But high-profile support has come from Michael Rosen and Stephen Fry, who says:
“Mobile libraries are lifelines for rural communities. I know. I grew up in the remote Norfolk countryside. The arrival every other Thursday of our mobile library quite literally changed my life. The idea that such a vital, beautiful, simple service should be denied to future generations is heart-breaking.”
Campaigners make several persuasive points. Among them: financial claims are questionable, replacement plans don’t make sense and Devon, they say, has claimed reduced usage by ignoring key factors – including the fact that the mobile fleet has been halved.

Plus: “One of the things that has come to light during this process is the number of people who didn’t realise that there was a mobile library coming to their area and have signed up to join it. More publicity would obviously help increase the users.”
The council’s decision has been called in for scrutiny, so all is delayed until October. Maybe Devon could use the time to consider the alternative ideas suggested by the Friends.
Read the full argument at the petition site here

LIBRARY SERVICES FOR THE BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED

The Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) runs a library service for blind and visually impaired people to which many public library services subscribe on behalf of their users. Other organisations such as Calibre Audio do a similar job with perhaps fewer resources. And it is well worth checking out Share the Vision which tries to bring together these and other library organisations to improve the quality, availability and accessibility of library services for visually impaired and print disabled people.

These links are also on our website under our Essential Info page

LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE COURSES

Rotherham Council’s overview and scrutiny board recently approved plans to redevelop the town centre with a new complex, including the delivery of a new central library. While the existing library was, we believe, purpose built, possibly in the sixties, it is a little away from the centre of town and over ten years ago , when we visited, was showing its age.
The new Central Library will be relocated to the site of the existing Guardian Centre, which is part of the Markets complex, and will include a café, meeting rooms, flexible gallery space, and a maker’s space. The Markets complex as a whole will get a serious makeover, particularly with a view to connecting it to residential communities to the east of the town centre and the 3000+ student and academic population immediately adjacent to it.

AND FINALLY… SHOUTOUT TO STAFFS

Kudos to Staffordshire County Council, which has just opened its revamped library in Tamworth. It’s the fifth new or “heavily refurbished” library in recent years.

Thanks so much – all of us at The Library Campaign – please get in touch any time with questions or feedback and don’t forget to follow us across our social media below