Your library: use it or lose it

…Clapham

I would urge everyone to pop into their local public library, see what it has to offer and decide whether to become a regular borrower. If you don’t, it could go.

Clapham’s new library has an automated system that allows users to borrow and return books without a librarian. I watched and waited as the woman in front of me slowly pulled out one book after another from her bulging carrier bags, placed each under the scanner and then drop the book in the return box.

I asked a librarian how many books could be borrowed at one time. Fifteen. I was astonished. She opened her arms wide and looked up at all the books on the shelves spiralling up the walls in the open-plan, circular interior. ‘No-one is borrowing books any more. Most people who come to the library use the internet or hire rooms. The council is cutting the libraries’ budget every year.’ She implied that her job was at stake and that the library might eventually be turned into a community arts centre.

I wondered to myself. Is this a national trend? Is it caused by the growing popularity of e-books? The availability of cheap paperbacks of the classics? Fewer people reading novels? The internet replacing the reference book?

I’m sure that many people who haven't stepped into their local library for years would be up in arms if it were threatened with closure and quick to sign petitions and join the picket lines. But the most effective direct action would to become a regular borrower before the threat arises.

Maybe the traditional library is old-fashioned. Maybe it has no place in the modern world. Maybe Lambeth Council has built a wonderful white elephant.

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