AUGUST 2025  Welcome to our newsletter round up of August’s UK libraries news! INCREDIBLE CROYDON  Laugh or cry? We were heavily involved in Croydon’s chaotic cuts plans. They made little sense, and included wild promises to ‘mitigate’ four unpopular closures with a huge programme of local collections, outreach visits, travel support etc. It was all nonsense, of course. As we predicted. The council has now attracted a hail of further criticism by messing up the closed libraries. Community groups of a sort have been found to take on the buildings. But two have been squatted and damaged. And all have junked large quantities of books – in full view of an outraged public. And local and national press. Those with a twisted sense of humour will enjoy this video of the mayor’s visit, expressing surprise and outrage at the shocking damage inflicted when… er, a building was entirely in the council’s control. (picture courtesy of Inside Croydon.)LAW HAVE MERCY?Something you don’t often see these days: campaigners turning to judicial review (JR). This is drastic and risky, and something we are increasingly reluctant to recommend. But in Caerphilly you can see their point. The plan was to close 10 – out of 18! – libraries at the end of August. As always, it’s striking how little stood to be saved – just £507,000 a year, for losing 10 libraries. There were some confusing ideas to replace them with seven ‘hybrid hubs’, none of them in the places due to lose their library, and also to give the library sites to any ‘community groups’ that would have them. It’s a bit difficult to believe any sensible saving at all might have resulted. Anyway, this is all now in the past tense. The legal process has begun, so the closures are ‘paused’. This, at least, is a clear benefit of a JR – time to think again. It’s early days. Solicitors Harding Evans are not yet revealing the name of the ‘local campaigner’ issuing the challenge, nor the grounds on which the council’s decision will be contested as unlawful. It has had strong backing from the start from the Caerphilly Trades Union Council, which has views on how the council’s funds could be better spent. One to watch. REFURBISHMENT IN PRESTON AND BLAYDON  The historic Harris Museum, Art Gallery and Library in Preston is to reopen at the end of September after a major refurbishment. The Harris is a major part of Preston’s history and the flagship of Lancashire Libraries. Four years of work, hindered by finding and treating asbestos, as well as a contractor going bust, includes complete electrical rewiring and heating as well as restoration of fittings in line with original features. (Picture of the roof left)The re-opening on Sunday 28 September will see Nick Park cut the ribbon and the first exhibition will see a special Wallace and Gromit theme celebrating their connection with Preston. The reports we have seen (and the website linked above) don’t mention library stock and facilities but we hope that these have not been forgotten and have had a refresh too. Over the Pennines in Gateshead, Blaydon, the fourth library to have been renewed with money from the council’s Transforming Libraries project, and funding from the UK government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, reopened this month. Blaydon also has new heating as well as new furniture, flooring and a ‘brighter fresher space’. There is also a transformed Children’s area. While local government funding is still very tight it is good to hear of projects like these which, if they don’t buck the trend, do show that there some good stuff going on in the public library world. TALL ORDER St Helens was once an exemplary finder of external grants to support its thriving library service. Alas, that’s a while ago. Things got really grim last year, with six libraries closed – leaving just seven open.  But wait! All six are due to re-open as ‘community libraries’! And they will be backed up by an exciting ‘Community Libraries Grant Scheme’! This, it seems, will pay out ‘nearly £25,000’ – between all six. It might even disgorge a further £25,000 in round two. A starter supply of loaves and fishes might be more realistic. We wish all the best to the job-lot of organisations taking on the libraries. They include community centres, a church, a YMCA and a parish council. But this has to be the daftest ‘plan’ we have ever seen. INFORMATION WARS The Library Campaign continues its legal tussles. Chief current headache is Birmingham. It was clear from the start that the plan, whatever the fate of individual branches, would downgrade the whole concept of libraries and librarians. So it is proving. We have many questions to ask of the council. We’d also like to know what advice the DCMS has been giving in its supervisory role. Both are saying we want more answers than they have time/resources to provide… Meanwhile, we are trying a different approach to Blackburn with Darwen, Lancs. This council, which has some very deprived areas, is building up painful overspends in this financial year, in many departments. Cuts will be made to get back on track. We have written to the council reminding them of their statutory duty, and that we will be watching developments. Maybe this early warning might concentrate minds. BANNED BOOKS AND EVENTS  We mentioned Banned Books week last month (it’s the 5-11 October) and to accompany that there have been two recent stories about library events been cancelled (in both senses of the word) in the last few weeks. In Belfast a Drag Queen Story Hour with Lady Portia di’Monte took place but was disrupted with police escorting Lady Portia and co-performer Miss Dora Belle away for safety reasons. The event was later condemned by the Minister as ‘not appropriate for children.’ Chief Executive off CILIP, Louis Coffait Gunn rightly responded “Drag Queen Story Hour has been shown to boost children’s reading and engagement, offering a creative, centuries-old storytelling tradition that celebrates imagination, diversity and literacy.’ He also restated the need for libraries to be safe places for children but also to serve all members of the community.Lady Portia received a lot of online abuse and has started a crowdfunder to take legal action. Belfast is technically outside The Library Campaign’s remit but Suffolk is definitely on our patch. We have reported on the Council’s decision to take the service back in house earlier this year with the support of the staff union but against the wishes of local Friends groups. Now the Council has made headlines by cancelling ‘Story Time with Mama G’ (also a drag queen – picture above.) We don’t know, but suspect, that this might have been booked before the change in ownership of the service. Anyhow, the Council claimed that ‘claimed concerns had been raised “regarding Mama G’s performance crossing the line between a traditional pantomime dame and more controversial gender identity advocacy”. Fortunately the local new Wolsey Theatre stopped in to save the day and there is also likely to be a show in Lowestoft. Mama G is quoted as saying “If members of the council had access to stories and education about people who weren’t like them when they were younger, they wouldn’t feel so threatened by us now.” And if you want more on Banned Books Week, try this (from the US) and this from Pan Macmillan publishers in the UK.DIGITAL WALES Some years ago the 22 Welsh public library authorities got together and invested in a common library management system (the thing that includes the catalogue and borrowing books etc.) Now, funding from the Welsh Government is enabling a wide range of digital link ups. “A shared platform will increase the range of materials available at people’s local libraries by allowing them to share their resources with other libraries.” Led by Cyngor Gwynedd (the local authority for Gwynedd) it will go live later this year. Once implemented,, the plan is that the platform will enable library services to work together on other developments such as a single Welsh library card. THE VALUE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES The charity and social enterprise GLL runs libraries (and leisure and children’s centres) for a number of local authorities, not without some criticism for their employment practices. However, this month they highlighted some recent research they had done which definitely counts as good news for libraries. The research that reported that “Library users are saving an average of £1,472.79 per year by utilising services such as book loans, digital resources, and free Wi-Fi or hotdesking spaces, showing that libraries don’t just enrich lives—they deliver real financial benefits.” It was good to see the mention of hot-desking, as we have previously used our social media, especially Instagram, to highlight the fact that public libraries are one of the original co-working spaces and, importantly, are free at the point of entry for any member of the public. News items like this raise awareness of what libraries have to offer. Research such as this could be used towards a larger UK-wide campaign that promotes library usage in general and not just for borrowing books, even though the helpful money-saving stats were included. It also takes a deep dive into many library-related statistics, including who is using them and how often, which has some surprises considering the general view is often that library usage is on a downward trend. The research also highlighted the fact that many people would consider having a library nearby as a reason to move to that neighborhood, and that many people are making friends that they would likely not have met were it not for their local library. FACEBOOKROUND UP  Friends of Builth Wells Library (Powys) have been posting about the new book club that they are launching, with their initial meeting taking place on Thursday, September 11th. Their comments feed already shows a lot of interest from locals, and their post included an inspiring quote from Mark Twain ‘Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life’ If your Friends group runs or plans to start running a book club based in your library we’d love to hear which books or themes you choose for your group! West Yorkshire’s Friends of Batley Library advertised their ongoing series of events for children, ‘Library Adventures’. The events are free with a Kirklees library card and include assisted reading challenges, the chance to collect stickers, and win progress certificates. Friends of Chinnor Library, Oxfordshire, held what looked like a very fun sleepover event for parents and children in their library earlier this month. It was actually a “teddy bear sleepover,” and they wrote, “The teddies were very excited to attend the annual teddy bear sleepover this week! This year, there was a trip to the Beach. There were crafts, and even a bit of seaside yoga!” In this case, the beach, on an annual sleepover, even in the library, was actually a prop made from dyed blue fabric. A very inspiring event! Friends of Whitton Library in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, have been very busy promoting the home delivery service that their library runs as well as posting about their busy calendar of events, including late-night workshops for locals, fringe theatre hosted at the library, and film screenings. In North Yorkshire, Friends of Guisborough Library posted this week that they are already listing their Halloween and Christmas-themed craft events for children and adults to attend. They warn that spots are getting booked up fast, as places are limited. Like so many library Friends Groups across the UK, Friends of Heysham Library, Lancashire, run a “knit and natter” regular event, a chance for people to come together and knit with refreshments available. A great opportunity to keep hands busy and socialize. They also run many other events and have a separate link on their Facebook page for these various events for locals to attend. It was encouraging to see the report of a packed house of attendees at Southampton’s Friends of Portswood Library Jane Austen event a few weeks ago. The talk was by Jack Wilson, as the event was a collaboration with ‘SEE Southampton’, where he is a local tour guide. We ask local Friends groups to tell us what they are up to and recently we had responses from Holt (Norfolk) and Shenfield (Essex.) Holt attached a copy of their latest Diary of Events, usually attended by around 30 or more on a Thursday morning, and noted that their Fairyland Trust Event to connect with the UK Reading Challenge was fully booked. Shenfield had their first first evening event recently – an a capella and comedy group. Essex Libraries did not charge them to use the premises, as per their original Terms of Reference, and funded a member of staff for the event, too. The downside is that they were restricted to 50 tickets in the vast space – seemingly as that was the figure for the tiny temporary Library which was the size of a classroom! Nothing to do with Fire regs. apparently. AND FINALLY… IN OUR BAD BOOKS The BBC is axing its much-valued books slot on BBC2, Between the Covers. In eight series since 2020, presenter Sara Cox has hosted a wide range of celebs to discuss new books and their own favourites – including Neneh Cherry, Richard Osman, Graham Norton, Stephen Mangan and Sara Pascoe. It can’t cost much, and books get so little time (or star power) on TV. Why kill this show? The Beeb says it’s ‘to enable us to prioritise high-impact content that drives viewers to iPlayer’. If you can write (and think) gibberish like that, you need to read a few good books. 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. |
