 Welcome to our newsletter round up of August’s UK libraries news! RELIEF IN REDDITCH We’ve been holding our breath since May… but at last we can say that Redditch library is saved! We have covered extensively the bizarre story of this extremely busy library that brings up to 1,000 people daily to a town centre due for revival. The council was determined to demolish it in favour of an empty piazza to er… increase footfall. We sent detailed evidence explaining how daft and costly this would be. Local people consistently said no – including an emphatic 72% in the consultation by the library authority (Worcestershire county council). This was ignored. The Labour party made saving the library a major plank in its local election campaign in May. It very comfortably won control from the Tories.  Doubts remained. The outgoing administration had apparently secured a contract to move the library service elsewhere. Cancelling it would cost a fortune. “Information” also circulated that any change would means Worcestershire would not be able to maintain the service as is, and that substantial town development funding would be at risk.All this has been checked and found to be untrue. So Redditch can continue to enjoy the second busiest library in the county – with £4.2m now available to pay for something useful. Congratulations to the Save Redditch Library campaign! SPELLOW LANE  It hardly needs saying that we unreservedly condemn the attack on Spellow Lane library in Liverpool during the August riots (picture above courtesy of the Bookseller.) A local resident put it best: “I’m disgusted to see what happened. Nazis burn books – these have gone one step further and burnt a library.” However, good has come from bad. There has been massive press coverage, both local and national. All of it very clear that libraries are an invaluable local resource – and a mark of civilisation. We cannot praise highly enough the crowd funding initiative started by another local resident (not a library worker or campaigner) to rebuild and restock the library. It aimed to raise £500 – but now has over £250,000. It was also supported by national figures ranging from Nigella Lawson to new children’s laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce.Re-opened only last year and described as “the library of the future” it had traditional library services – with full digital access, including free use of tablets (self-service on Tuesday and Friday). Plus an enterprise business service, training and skills programmes for long term unemployed, free to use “smart” classrooms, bookable online, flexible spaces for learning, coding workshops, parent and toddler groups (etc), a One Stop Shop to access council services and art gallery fixtures to celebrate local creativity. We have not yet seen details of how and when it will be re-opened – a huge undertaking. We look forward to reporting that too. BLUE PETERBOROUGH Woodston library in Peterborough is under threat of closure. Sharp-eyed locals spotted it in an obscure online list of council properties up for disposal.They rang us for advice, then to get sample constitutions to help write their own. Now a new and active Friends group is getting press and radio cover, and has a Facebook group (listed on our national website, of course).  The library was funded in 1951 by local (jam) grandee Mr Hartley of Fletton. Peterborough City Council are reviewing all the properties they own. They suggest moving the library service elsewhere and letting out the building for another use.The Friends are holding public meetings in the library on 5 and 7 September (both 2-4pm) to launch a full campaign to keep it open, preferably with extended opening hours and activities. (Our headline is a little ironic – Peterborough is now run by a minority Labour party administration.) BROMLEY – TIME TO COMMENT September 5 is the deadline for what looks like a genuine consultation on a new central library for Bromley. Well, the basic decision to move it into a former Top Shop has been made. This follows much hoo-ha involving the town’s Churchill Theatre, sales of other council buildings, a previous public survey (1,300 responses) and (inevitably) asbestos. However, the layout for a new, expanded library is now for residents to decide. Refreshingly, the initial plans are not just online but on public display at the old Top Shop (145 High Street) and the current central library (with paper copies available). More consultations like this, please. More information here and survey here. LOOK TO THE LORDS  One to watch… Lord Parkinson was a keen and respected libraries minister in the Conservative government. He started the “Sanderson review” process towards a national strategy to revitalise public libraries. Now out of office, he is not giving up. He has scheduled a Lords debate for 12 September on “whether the Labour government plans to publish a new strategy for public libraries”. Good for him.We have covered the Sanderson project in detail, notably in our magazine issues no 105 and 106. For a quick catch-up, see the Lords Library report. AT LAST – A NATIONAL DATASET? For years, campaigners and others have been calling for a national dataset of information about public libraries. The existing CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy) annual statistics have long been failing – so much so that less than half of public library authorities submitted data the last time they were asked. In addition, CIPFA charges an arm and a leg if you want to see the full version of what it has managed to collect. Unpaid volunteers such as Ian Anstice (Public Libraries News ) and Dave Rowe (Libraries Hacked) try to fill some gaps. They are well worth following. But what’s needed is something collected ‘officially’ and reliably. Now ACE (Arts Council England) has published the first attempt at that. You have to download an Excel spreadsheet. It list libraries by local authority including address, opening hours, when the library has staff on site, other services co-located there such as museums, health and university (even a hotel!) Interestingly, it also indicates whether each library has been part of the statutory provision since 2010 and if not, when that ceased, and when the library was originally opened, if known, and when closed if that was since 2010. And finally it has details of the operating organisation (which may not be the local authority even if the library service is still run by them). It is a very useful start. It lists 3,487 libraries in England including mobile libraries and at least some of those not run by local authorities. However it is only a start. We look forward to its expansion to cover at least some of the stuff that CIPFA used to collect such as on spending and bookstock. PRESS FOR ACTION Apart from the Spellow Lane story, there has been some decent press coverage of public libraries lately. The Guardian made libraries the subject of its regular four-page “long read”, largely about a day in the life of a library in Reading – pointing out how they are “filling the gaps left by a state that has reneged on its responsibilities”. TLC officers Laura Swaffield and Andrew Coburn are variously quoted in Telegraph (3 August behind a paywall) and Guardian articles on self-service in libraries, and – coming soon, dates unknown – BBC breakfast TV and the Bookseller’s annual libraries issue (out this week – seek it in your local library). FACEBOOK ROUND UP  Friends of Sidmouth Library have been selling books in order to create room for more. They held a bookselling event last weekend that apparently had many bargains to be found. There look to be far too many for them to be ex-library stock! Meanwhile, Save Walkley Library has been showing off recent acquisitions to its community run Carnegie Library. Friends of Wheatley Library has been having great success with their summer reading campaign, which has been a hit with local children in the area. They posted a reminder for people to keep on reading and visiting the library beyond summer after the challenge is over. Friends of North Petherton Library (Somerset) known as “Pethy” by the locals have been fundraising by putting on a disco and Friends of Wimborne Library in Dorset have been publicizing their next morning coffee event on September 7th. We see more and more of this and are encouraged by the libraries being used as social spaces beyond being places to simply gather information and conduct research. Friends of Coggeshall Library (Essex) announce that they will be hosting another author talk – this time with A K Blackmore on Wednesday 18th September. https://www.facebook.com/OundleLibraryFriends are very active online, especially since a fire closed the building last month. They update their Facebook as a way to get people’s attention to their website content. Check out some nice writing on that site about Mockingbird author Harper Lee below and get a sense of how active this friends group is especially where reading and community are concerned: Let us know what your Friends Group has been up to or plans to do. Get in touch over email, Facebook, Instagram or X… AND FINALLY… Our “usual channels” have failed (so far) to fix a meeting with new libraries minister Chris Bryant. We will keep pressing. The initial response refers to “very significant pressures on ministerial diaries at present”. We trust that part of the pressure is understanding his brief… The letter also says: “Public libraries are a vital public resource, helping to inspire, educate, support and entertain people of all ages and backgrounds. The range of outcomes they help to achieve is substantial and varied, and the government is therefore committed to ensuring that library provision remains strong.” Let’s all hold him to that concept. Please get in touch with us if your local library is under threat, you have a Friends group that you wish to promote or you would like advice about how to start a Friends group for your local library – currently under threat or not. Feel free to ask any questions about what Friends groups get up to. We have now created an archive of our previous newsletters, which you can view here – check it out if you haven’t already and share the link as it’s also a place for new subscribers to sign up. 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