JULY 2023 – The Library Campaign

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

Folkestone

The future of the town’s listed Grace Hill library is still far from assured (see previous newsletter). But a legal letter from Public Interest Law Centre has had a good result. Kent County Council (KCC) now states it is:
“willing to work with the claimant and the local community on exploring the short, medium and long term arrangements for the library service”.
It will discuss options with them.The local Save Our Library campaign welcomes this new level of “candour” from KCC – which includes “detail on the financial background in place of more generic figures circulating previously.
“Overall the exchange has produced clarity on how this situation has evolved andwhere the responsibilities lie. It is also possible for the first time to see a glimmer ofpossibility that we can find a way forward by engaging in a more constructivedialogue.”
That is certainly a better way forward. What a pity it took legal threats toget KCC to realise it!

Show business and the BL

Our latest movie thrill has not been Barbie or Oppenheimer – but to stroll into the local Picturehouse and see a good-quality ad for a library service! For years TLC has been urging libraries to get together to do this simple thing that any business would do. Fittingly, it’s the British Library business and IP (intellectual property) service that has invested in advertising. That means it can, thriftily, be shown in all the 21 towns that have an offshoot BL centre in their own public library.
These centres are a huge success. At a very local level, they provide masses of expensive business reference sources, plus events and one-to-one support, both in-person and online. The latest national report covers a very tricky period – April 2020 to March 2023. It finds that every £1 invested paid back £6.63. The centres helped set up 18,175 new businesses (24 every working day). Of these, 72% are owned by women, 26% by people from an ethnic minority and 25% by people who had been unemployed. That’s why the report is called “Democratising Entrepreneurship”. The businesses created about 6,124 new full-time equivalent jobs, and added a total £168m new full-time equivalent jobs, and added a total £168m to local economies. Altogether, the centres helped 62,876 individuals and responded to 51,591 enquiries!For more dazzling facts, visit the website. There’s a separate report about a two-year project in London – and lots of inspiring case histories.

Friends Group Constitutions

We mentioned last month that Dudley libraries appear to have been saved from closure. We forgot to say that local Campaigners thanked the Campaign for our involvement and especially the website. They also asked us for a constitution for a Friends Group. We have several examples so sent one but it prompted us to ask other Groups which have formal constitutions / rules if you would share them with us.
Friends Groups (or whatever name you use) have very different origins and ways of working. Some are registered charities or have other, more formal, compositions while others have established constitutions to assist in workjng together. Either way, if you have something we can look at, please send it to us at: thelibrarycampaign@gmail.com

Libraries Connected

Libraries Connected East has conducted extensive research that happily reveals that England’s public libraries generate a value of £3.4 billion a year and we at The Library Campaign think that far more people should know about this. On their website Libraries Connected say that:
“Through extensive library visits, user interviews, and statistical analysis, the authors estimated that a branch library typically provides £1 million in value annually. They then extrapolated the findings to all of England’s 3,000 libraries, giving a national total of £3.4 billion. Using Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) spending data for the year 2021/22, this represents a return on investment of at least six times cost.”
We hope this report is taken seriously by local authorities. Spending on libraries has fallen by 17% in the last year, while in-person visits are rapidly returning to pre-Covid levels. More and more councils are scrapping late return fees, as was reported a few months ago here in The Guardian.
The full report from Libraries Connected can be viewed as a PDF here.

News from Southwark

We’re delighted to note several library revamps by authorities that understand what libraries can do for them. This month we highlight Southwark, south London. Its flagship (award winning) library in Peckham has just re-opened with £1.5m’s worth of repairs, new low-carbon lighting and heating, refurbished kitchens and toilets, new decor and flooring, faster computers, new children’s and teen areas – and more. The “green” elements are part of a borough-wide retrofit of public buildings.We’re equally happy to see a more modest branch library restored on the Kingswood housing estate. Lockdown saw it moved from its home in a splendid castle-like building and reduced to a barely-open “click and collect”. TLC wrote to support residents, who worried when the castle was transferred to an arts organisation… but the library is now being expanded and re-equipped, with extra space for youth services…

Nottingham Central Library

The central library in Nottingham closed a couple of years ago and was not replaced by a temporary building meaning that all the stock was unreachable – certainly for in person visitors. The plan was to open a new Central Library but this seemed to hit a number of road blocks and a date was never given for the new building to open. Now the Council has announced that it is being prepared and that it will open ‘towards the end of this year’. A relief no doubt to the local citizens, some of whom persisted in questioning the Council and got the Campaign involved to help get answers.

And finally… Persistence pays in Oxfordshire

Amanda Epps is a long-time Campaign supporter and a member of the Friends of Charlbury Library in Oxfordshire. She has written to let us know that the 20 year Friends campaign to get a new library in the village finally bore fruit in 2017. Amanda wrote “It had been decided that the best location would be in the new Community Centre. By 2007, we had raised the £10,000 towards the cost agreed with the County Council. We had also made donations towards the Library stock. And then it finally happened. It is in the Centre which also has a Sports Hall and a multi-function room. The Library is in an open space, shared with the reception desk, tables and chairs. As there’s a self-service machine it’s open un-staffed whenever the building is open. It is staffed for about 18 hours by a Librarian and volunteers. I know a parent of three children who takes one to a sport session and values the access to the Library for the others. And if they want to borrow a book, they can do so. There is a corner with a settee and chairs where some pre-school sessions take place. We never imagined such an useful space would be the outcome of the Friends efforts.”

This may not exactly be ‘new’ news but it shows the value of persistence.

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