Fighting to save a library and a town

On Friday I walked with a leaden heart to a public meeting held at the local council offices regarding the potential closure of my local library. I had no hope that it would make any difference. I lost my faith in politics on a national scale many years ago, and on a local scale relatively recently when I saw how one of the mass supermarket chains systematically played the system and bullied local government into succumbing to its wishes.

I wasn't going there with the hope of making any kind of difference whatsoever. I know these closures are all to do with money, and when that's the case, the heart is hardened and ears are closed and no amount of grief will do anything about it.

But something still drove me to attend. A last spark of optimism? Perhaps. But I think it was also the knowledge that if I saw that library close without having tried to do something, I would never forgive myself. I wanted to see if there was any chance of action that would prevent it. I wanted to see if we were being given a false sense of having a say in it, whilst the decision had already been made.

Setting the scene

I want to give you a little background before I go on. I live in a small town called Shepton Mallet in Somerset, south west England. It's a town on its knees. Twenty minutes down the road is a thriving tourist destination, the city of Wells with its grand Cathedral and bustling high street. Shepton feels like the town Somerset forgot.

At the top of the town is a huge commercial development that has sucked the life out of the high street. There has been little in the way of schemes or initiatives that have made any real impact on the state of the market place and its empty shops. There are shops there, don't get me wrong, I use many of them. But there are so many empty, and such a feeling of urban decay too.

The library is the heart of the town. It draws 300 people a day to the market square (figure provided in that meeting). The only other amenities in the town, aside from a tragically small number of banks, are a post office and a tourist information centre. There is no job centre, the Citizens Advice Bureau was slaughtered in recent budget cuts and there (to my knowledge at least) are no other sources of help or information for people without access to the internet. There is no internet café, no bookshop (which also agonises me) and nobody willing, it seems, to invest in the town.

It is my belief, and of practically every person who attended that meeting, that if the library in Shepton Mallet closes, it will deal a death blow to the town centre.

So, back to the meeting

There was a palpable atmosphere upon arrival. Passions were high, people were being encouraged to sign the petition and fill out the questionnaire, both of which I'd already done at the library the week before. I later found out that 3000 other people had already signed too, and we need 5000 signatures to force a full debate at district council level.  It was standing room only by the time I got through to the chamber, and my heart was pounding in response to my instinct to fight. The feeling of hopelessness was burned away at the door when I saw and felt the presence of so many other people enraged by the proposal to close the library.

I watched a presentation by a district councillor on how the numbers had been crunched on library usage to feed into the cut back plan. I could feel the roiling mass of resentment – both inside me and within the room – as we all waited for a chance to speak.

The deputy head of the district council was there to listen and take our comments to the final meeting where the decision will be made. We had the opportunity to make our views heard, but rapidly I could see the chasm between us, the residents and those making the final decision.

Speaking the right language

I had to speak. I wanted to rail at the sheer disgust burning in my gut at how "they" proposed to deny free access to books and knowledge. I wanted to shake my fist and launch a searing attack against an administration who wanted to deny my child and all of the other children in this dying town the opportunity to discover the joy of books without the involvement of money. I wanted to yell that libraries are the last bastion of learning above consumerism.

But I realised that would be useless. They know this already. I doubt any of the people on that panel, on that night, forced into making cuts, forced into facing a room full of two hundred or so furious people, actually want to close our library. Expressing my emotions would only close them up, make them put up defensive walls between us. They are human beings, and when people are threatened, they defend, and closing their ears and hearts to us was the last thing I wanted.

So I thought about the presentation. I saw how much this decision was going to be affected by numbers. So when I had the opportunity to speak, I didn't shout, I didn't show the emotion I wanted to. I asked questions about how the data had been gathered, I questioned its accuracy and I asked when the final decision is going to be made and by whom.

I got some answers. My inner raging book-devouring dragon wasn't sated, not even a tiny bit, but the cold, analytical brain that got me through difficult times in the past was feasting.

People made stirring statements that gave voice to our upset, and bonded us together. Never have I been in a room with so many people and felt one with them. It was one of the truly rare occasions in my life when I didn't feel like I was on the outside looking in. Some asked questions that were devastating – one I wished I'd asked myself:

"Have you costed the death of a town?"

These are hard times

I'm not going to go into the reasons why it's absolutely imperative to keep not just our library, but all libraries, open. That's for a later post. Take it as read that I believe that with every strand of my book-woven body. But even in my passion, I can see that these are terrible, terrible times. These cuts are just one small part of the picture. There are cuts to care for the elderly, for the chronically ill, for countless other aspects of our society.

It is absolutely soul destroying when we're told that the money left in the pot is being divided between vulnerable people and keeping a library open. And the sense of helplessness still pervades. There is nothing I can do about all the debt and the deficit and the need to save money. I'm just one person who can barely afford to keep my house and look after my family, but you know what, I am going to do something to protect my local library. That's the one thing I feel qualified to defend, the one thing I know I am so passionate about that it will over-ride my fear of doing anything in public.

But really, what can we do?

I'll write letters to the District Councillors (I already know the Town Council is 100% against the closure) and to my MP and to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government too. I'll present the arguments on their terms, I'll explain my concerns about the way the data has been gathered and used, I'll draw attention to the impact of the closure on the town, and the impact on the hundreds of families in Shepton who, quite literally, depend upon the library to access the internet, look for work, not to mention the hugely successful reading schemes for our town's children.

There have already been the most amazing efforts on the part of people in Shepton to fight this closure, and I will be getting in touch with people I met at the meeting to see what we can do together.

But it still won't change the fact that the council doesn't have enough money. And if it's a choice between losing the library altogether, and stepping in ourselves, I would much rather we as a community try to find the financial shortfall for the library. I think it's absurd to suggest that it could be run on a volunteer basis as librarians are highly trained individuals, and running a library is a complex exercise. I'll swallow down the bile at the thought that access to books and trustworthy sources of knowledge are turning into a luxury, roll up my sleeves and do all I can to keep that library going.

Who's with me?