When the government is telling us that there are hard choices ahead, with a £20 billion financial ‘black hole’ in the country’s finances to be covered somehow, and when the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners is actually going to impact many who are on the edge of poverty – why should we be worrying about the closure of council-run libraries across the country?
Library closures matter profoundly
The figures are stark – over 343 libraries closed between 2016 and 2020, and the numbers have continued to mount since, with a further 180 venues being closed or handed over to community groups. More than 2,000 jobs have been lost in the past eight years, and the most recent report from the BBC’s Shared Data Unit reveals that the most deprived areas of the country are around four times more likely to have lost a local library than the wealthiest.
Why this matters – and matters profoundly – was best summed up by the best-selling author and creator of the Jack Reacher novels, Lee Child, in a recent interview on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme. He described his difficult and impoverished childhood in Birmingham, and how the discovery of his local library changed his life and set him on the path towards his eventual career as a writer.
The library was, for him, a refuge, a treasure-trove of knowledge and rich stories, and in winter a warm place to study and read. Referring to libraries as “food banks for the brain”, he has joined the campaign to prevent the closure of libraries in Birmingham.
Michael Rosen, the children’s author and former children’s Laureate has been an advocate for local libraries for years and has attacked the cuts as a “decimation of our cultural entitlement” and an “act of cruelty”. Not least because far from becoming redundant in the age of the e-book and the computer, as once predicted, usage of libraries has actually increased in recent years. A study by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy found that library visits rose by 71% in the years between 2021 and 2023.
An invaluable asset for community and cultural life
The stereotypical view of libraries that I held, possibly along with many others who like me had not visited their local library for many years, was of a rather gloomy place smelling of dust and ancient tomes, staffed by fierce women in swept-up glasses who hissed ferociously at anyone daring to disturb the heavy silence with so much as a sneeze. If ever that was an accurate picture – which I doubt – it is certainly not the case nowadays, as I discovered when I first visited my local library with my young granddaughter.
Housed in a light and airy building, it was an absolute hub of activity. Adults and school children worked at computers at one end of the ground floor, while upstairs the children’s section was brightly decorated, with comfortable seating, a soft play area and scatter cushions for mums to rest on as they read to their offspring.
We were there for the weekly singing and poetry session for toddlers, which my granddaughter loved. There was a real sense of a facility that was deeply valued by the community, and that was well used by people of every age.
My local library is typical of most modern council-run venues in offering far more than just book-borrowing facilities. Many provide after-school and holiday activities for children, run literacy and English classes for recent arrivals to the UK, offer access to computers and somewhere warm to spend the day for those facing fuel poverty.
But in the opportunity to explore different subjects and authors or to research a particular topic, in the chance discoveries of books that become long-term favourites or perhaps transform someone’s ideas and ambitions, lies the enormous value that libraries contribute to the cultural life of this country.
East Sussex libraries closed despite public opposition
So how successful have the county councils of East and West Sussex been in preserving their local libraries? Although both were Conservative-led over the period measured by the BBC report, the differences between the two are startling.
The number of council-run services in East Sussex declined from 25 to 17 between 2016 and 2023, whereas West Sussex retained all its 36 libraries over the period, (although there may have been some reduction in opening hours).
The strength of support for local library services was demonstrated by the number of people in East Sussex – 9,000 – who signed a petition in 2018 protesting against council plans to shut seven of its venues, in spite of which the plans went ahead.
An uncertain future
A few libraries have been kept open by community groups and run by volunteers – one in the East Sussex village of Ringmer, near Lewes, is a case in point. But without taxpayer funding and reliant on the goodwill of local volunteers and donations of random collections of books that few might want to read, community-run libraries often tend to struggle.
Although county councils have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive library service, that duty that has been variably interpreted over the past decade by councils often desperate to cut over-spends on their budgets. Will the election of the Labour government herald the advent of a different approach to the provision and funding of local library services? It remains to be seen, but with the Chancellor’s warning of harder times to come, the signs are not encouraging.
Wini Bucklow, a volunteer with community-run Ringmer library, expressed it best when describing the sense of dread about the threatened closure of the venue in 2018: “It was like that space was just being torn out of the community.”
With a debate scheduled for 12 September in the House of Lords on whether the Labour government plans to publish a new strategy for public libraries, there will be many around the UK who will be hoping that policy will reflect the irreplaceable contribution that libraries make to the life of their local communities.
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