30 October 2013
Julie Boston on the fight to save Bristol Central Library for everyone who uses it.
By Thursday 5 December, the people of Bristol will know if their elected Mayor will protect Bristol Central Library from a proposal by Bristol’s Cathedral Primary School (a free school) to annex two library work-floors for the next 125 years.
This year, Bristol celebrates 400 years of public libraries in the city. Its Central Library currently has a reference library which includes periodicals, a newspaper collection and art collections. These collections are already being subjected to the same criteria as the lending books, in which stock which is rarely used is weeded out and removed, and may be sold or even pulped. Readers, researchers and the public of Bristol can access a range of public library materials on demand. Some of the collections are designated as having national importance.
This is threatened by the new school expansion. The concern is that this valuable public service will be seriously degraded as negotiations take place with an unaccountable outside body to occupy a significant working part of the library.
Bristol City Council has not informed the public library service users. There are no notices on display in the Central Library, nor is there any prominent information about threatened service change on BCC Libraries webpage.
However, the library users’ group Love Bristol Libraries is fighting back. An online petition by Councillor Richard Eddy is available through the Bristol City Council website, and on facebook and twitter. Regular updates are posted. A paper based petition has alerted at least 300 library users who were previously not aware of the proposals.
A new dimension to the campaign is “THE TALE OF THE MAYOR, THE COOK AND THE WARDROBE” by Christopher Warren. It has also been converted as an entertaining playscript and has been read in the Central Library and branch libraries by library users.
Bristol is just one example of a library under threat. The Speak Up for Libraries conference on Saturday 23 November is an opportunity to join others working to save libraries all over the country. Join us then: http://www.speakupforlibraries.org/
Comments
Julia Drummond replied on Permalink
A free public library service is one of the cornerstones of our intellectual and cultural life. It provides a haven of stimulation, comfort and information for all walks of society. To threaten it is to unpick the fabric of our nation. It is unforgivable to do this to a major facility like Bristol Central Library or to the smaller libraries throughout the country that are currently under threat. To do it in the interests of an elitist school is to state loudly that the ordinary people of our country count for nothing in to those with money and privilege.
I urge everyone who has ever taken refuge or sought information from a book to protect our libraries, large and small, in any way they can.
Add new comment