Save Our Libraries

Anyone who's fighting to keep Britain's libraries open - it's unthinkable that anyone could even contemplate this - there is a Facebook page, just search for "save our libraries" and the UK page will show up...

SAVE OUR LIBRARIES!

by Jerry Dowlen

“To lose one library is unfortunate; to lose two, Mr Dowlen, is careless!”

Fair comment - but the fact remains that during the early months of this year 2011, I did “lose” two libraries! The one in my home town of Orpington closed, and so did the one in Camomile Street, near the office where I work in the City of London.

It wasn’t quite as drastic as I have stated it above. Each of the two libraries was scheduled to relocate to a brand new (albeit smaller) modern building. The one in Orpington swiftly did so, after only a two-week shutdown. So it wasn’t long before I was back to terrorise the long-suffering Orpington library staff with more of my habitual S.O.S. calls at their enquiry desk (“I’ve forgotten who wrote ‘Lorna Doone’?”; “Can you check if any books are overdue on my wife’s ticket?”; “There used to be a book in the local history section with a red cover, about urban development, but I can’t see it there now?”)… (In answer to the latter question, the obliging lady member of staff will politely find the book for me within fifteen seconds, demonstrating that it was there right in front of my eyes all the time).

There was a much longer delay in restoring a library to me and to fellow office workers and residents of London EC3. It was classic Nonsense from the World of Lewis Carroll: shortly after closure of the Camomile Street building the City of London Libraries website announced the name of the street in which the replacement library would be located, but further investigation revealed that the specified building in that street didn’t actually exist. It reminded me of ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ and the episode in which Alice enters a shop and sees that it is stacked full of goods for sale, but whenever she tries to focus her gaze on any particular shelf, that shelf instantly becomes empty!

Patience is a virtue, though: the second-to-last week of September 2011 ushered in the novelty of a brand new mobile library van for our delight and delectation in London EC3! There came simultaneously the news that the promised new permanent building would be ready for occupation in October 2012. A whole year more to wait … but in the meantime we could climb aboard the Big White Bus and borrow a few books at least, from the cramped interior of the mobile library where the words “swing” and “cat” came instantly to mind! (Memo to myself for the Diet Department: if the arrival of the new mobile library means that I will not so often be taking the long walk back and forth to the Barbican Library during my office lunch-hour, I had better start going easy on the biscuits and buns that seem to have crept increasingly into my daily intake at my desk since I changed jobs three years ago).

Along with the thrill of my having not one, but two new, modern, spick and span library premises to inspect, there has come the wistfulness of bidding farewell to buildings old.

In Orpington, our former library was housed inside the mediaeval wooden-beamed splendour of The Priory buildings and gardens. A visit there to borrow books was a multi-cultural experience: not only a flowers-and-shrubs horticultural treat outdoors but an absorbing treat indoors if one had time to browse the rooms and displays of the London Borough of Bromley Museum housed inside The Priory too.

Now, if one visits the new Orpington Library located in The Walnuts shopping centre, the next-door culture is whatever can be found inside the Sainsbury supermarket; or whatever can be heard from the market traders, on Saturdays vociferously and indeed raucously shouting out their wares. Readers seeking quiet study-time inside the library might prefer not to hear the latter; but because unfortunately the new headquarters seems to have had an air-conditioning bypass, keeping the windows open has apparently become a necessary evil even if it does let through the constant cries from outside of: "Come on missus! Come and feel my lovely big marrows!"

The lending library in Camomile Street was never, I admit, one to set the pulse racing for architectural or aesthetic pleasure. But already I feel an inexplicable nostalgia for its featureless large room on the ground floor: it seems to have happened too abruptly during the spring and summer of 2011 that the whole huge building has been mercilessly swaddled in scaffolding and gauze, and then suddenly with a swish! of the magician's cloth, it has all disappeared, opening up a big new expanse of sky behind Bishopsgate.

But that's the modern construction industry: buildings can and do disappear frighteningly fast, these days; and the new ones seem to fly up in the blink of an eye, almost as if the yellow-helmeted construction workers empty the contents of a bottle of Grow-More on to the foundations last thing on a Friday afternoon, and by the time they return the next Monday morning, another ten stories of steel and glass have sprouted up towards the sky.

Save our Libraries! – Government Cuts

Inevitably, the recent changes affecting the Orpington and Camomile Street libraries have some crossover with the cuts in public spending that are currently being threatened or have already been imposed by the government during the recession.

The above statement doesn’t explain the full circumstances that have brought about the relocations of the Orpington and the Camomile Street library, but the savage spectre of library closures has sent out shock waves that continue to reverberate and to cause anxieties in our towns and shires where people don’t want to lose their precious libraries.

After losing their tenancy of the building in Camomile Street that has already been so swiftly demolished, the City of London temporarily went down to two lending libraries (Barbican and Shoe Lane) instead of three: not a catastrophe, one might say, but certainly a small inconvenience that is presumably to be blamed, in part at least, on the need to save costs.

The situation in Orpington is a different one: Bromley Council’s strategy in ejecting the library from The Priory is that they have identified the potential to convert that distinguished building (founded circa 1270) into a revenue-earning centre for civic ceremonies, conferences, and the like. But at least the Council didn’t close down the library or fling it out into the wilderness: they provided alternative premises; and not just any old premises but a spanking newly refurbished one, on a prime site bang in the middle of the High Street. As such, the library was being required to play an integral role in a bold initiative by Bromley Council to revive a fading High Street – Orpington is one of many High Streets in north Kent and south London where shops and traders are battling against the competing influence of the giant Tesco and the giant Bluewater.

It is a tough coincidence for public libraries throughout the whole country that the sudden pressure on them to justify their existence has come at a time when e-commerce and e-technology is dramatically revolutionising the world of books. Authors, publishers and booksellers are being forced to reinvent themselves if they are to survive and thrive. Libraries too have come under the spotlight as local Councils evaluate the fast-changing dynamics of why ratepayers would still use a public library, now that e-technology has radically altered so many of our social habits.

Moving the library to a more central position in Orpington High Street in May 2011 has proved to be an interesting and seemingly successful experiment. Reportedly, the number of people using the library has soared. (Usage is measured in “footfall” – that’s the applicable jargon today). Simplistically, this would indicate that making a public library more visible is essential to its welfare. Maybe those nearby fruit and vegetable traders aggressively calling out their wares have taught the library something: it isn’t enough to grow it; you also need to show it. I have seen recently too, in the town of Rye in Sussex, that their new public library is situated prominently in the High Street.

It strikes me that the design of the new libraries in Orpington and the Rye has been cleverly thought out. Each has a large frontage of glass window, enabling passers-by to see what is inside. And the interiors of the libraries look sufficiently colourful, interesting and welcoming that I would expect many people would feel attracted to go in and partake of what is there.

What scope is there for public libraries to add new strings to their bows? I mean: additional to books (for borrowing &/or reference), reading-rooms for newspapers and periodicals, and internet facilities? I’m sure that public libraries are getting the message that the more they can engage with their local community, the better their chances of lasting the course. Lately on my travels I have spotted a good few libraries escalating their range of customer-attracting activities to the best extent that they can within budgetary and space restraints. And why not? To hell with tradition: if a library can offer a public service (or more than one) that it didn’t offer before, of tangible benefit and not just a gimmick, that is surely good evolution.

Finally, I don’t mean to marginalise books. If we are to Save Our Libraries! we must celebrate Books! Books! Books! The library staff responsible for choosing the books for Orpington and London EC3 (mobile van) have risen admirably to the challenge. They have taken an assured stride into the second decade of the New Millennium by offering in each new library a skilfully selected and attractively presented array of crisp and bright new books (mostly paperbacks).

I say a “skilfully selected” array of books because I think two simultaneous needs have been addressed: the library staff have anticipated the need to wake up existing users like me by refreshing us with some tasty old wine in new bottles; better still they have anticipated the need to make a positive impact on brand new visitors – people who may previously never have thought of visiting a public library but have decided out of curiosity to take a peek inside the new one.

Whether shelved with the ‘1,001 BOOKS’ (old and new classics), a ‘QUICK PICK’ or a ‘BEST SELLER’ (with eye-catching yellow label); or something more specialised, there is surely a book of potential interest to everyone at Orpington Library and in the London EC3 mobile van. If more people are attracted into public libraries and they come to realise that they can be enriched by books, I believe that this above all will help to Save Our Libraries.

Jerry Dowlen

October 2011

Books Monthly is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. Web design is by Gateway. Submitting to Books Monthly: Basically, all you need do is e-mail it along and I'll consider it - it can be any length, if it's very long I'll serialise it, if it's medium-length I'll put it in as a novella, if it's a short story or a feature article it will go in as it comes. Payment is zero, I'm afraid, as I don't make any money from Books Monthly, I do it all for fun! For Advertising rates in Books Monthly please contact me at paulenorman@yahoo.co.uk. Should you be kind enough to want to send me books to review, please contact me by e-mail and I will gladly forward you my home address. Meanwhile, here's how to contact me: paulenorman@yahoo.co.uk