Save Ealing's Libraries campaigners make their point outside Hanwell Library.
The Save Ealing’s Libraries Campaign was set up in 2011 in response to Ealing Council’s desire to decimate library services across Ealing Borough in order to save on costs.
The ruling Labour Group was scared off library closures by the scale and ferocity of public outrage and by the threat of mutiny from its own members, who were bound and gagged by a three-line whip on its plan to axe libraries.
So we won, right? Wrong — it’s merely a stay of execution. Why? Because Council bean counters still have their beady eyes on libraries’ book-borrowing rates. While Hanwell Library and Perivale Library remain under-used, then they remain under threat of closure.
Encouraging communities to make use of their local library is now the focus of the Save Ealing’s Libraries campaign. We want to encourage debate about how local communities can be encouraged to engage more with their library.
This site also exists to provide library campaigns across the country with resources and advice on how to fight an effective campaign.
But we will also continue to hold Ealing Council decision makers to account. Like many councils, Ealing Council operates under a cloak of secrecy; extracting details of its library plans is like shaking an oyster from a piggy bank.
The only detailed information to have emerged about council’s plans for its library service has been pried from it by community activists using Freedom of Information Act orders. But such requests for information take up to a month to emerge, in which time key decisions are discussed and ratified with little or no public scrutiny.
Currently, library campaigners are waiting on crucial information from Ealing Council regarding its proposal that libraries be run by voluntary groups. But who are these groups? What are their motives for running libraries? Where will their funding come from? Who will they be answerable to? These and many other critical questions are being asked, but not answered.
Neither is there any information forthcoming about how the £900,000 Ealing Council is planning to invest in the library service will be spent. There are concerns, for example, that period features will be ripped out of Hanwell Library, and that no provision will be made to provide WiFi access — vital for broadening the appeal and relevance of libraries.
And what about book stock? Is Ealing Council planning to refresh its library stock to chime with modern audiences, as Hillingdon Council as done spectacularly well? Nobody knows, because nobody will say.
But the bottom line is, if you care about your local library, then please use it. If just 100 more people a month in Perivale or Hanwell took out one book a month it could be the difference between these libraries remaining open, or becoming another sad footnote in the story of our disappearing communities. It’s the same story the country over.
13 Comments
I am posting this message on behalf of my friend who is house bound and uses the mobile book delivery service and finds it very useful when there is not a programme on tv that she likes.
On 11 February Ealing Council paid £1.7 millon to purchase the YMCA Building in Bond Street in Central Ealing. The Council hints that the purchase is somehow linked to the would-be cinema development immediately adjacent, to the west.
At a time of financial stringency when Ealing Council is firing all our Park Rangers, is closing down two drop-in centres for the disabled and threatening to close public libraries – how can the Council justify purchasing property?
Please do not close Perivale Library!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO LIBRARIES TO BE CLOSED
do not close the library
The libraries are vital – they have to stay
Why on earth are they closing the libraries? what is going to replace them, more flats?
Hanwell library is one thing i’m proud to have in Hanwell, we will not stand for this.
Libraries are an essential tool for encouraging children to read a multitude of different books… if you take them away, you then restrict a child’s capacity to learn and enjoy reading! Do you want to be responsible for a generation of children who are not interseted in reading?
Please think of future generations of Hanwell children who will have no opportunity to visit a local library an browse through a multitude of books, and those on a low income who cannot afford to buy books!
Don’t close our library.
Do not close Pitshanger Library. It is of vital importance for the local community.
We all make very good use of its facilities. Mothers of pre-school children borrow simple illustrated books to interest their little ones in reading. School children use the books to help them with their school projects and get helpful advice from the library staff. Apart from the books they read for pleasure. Pensioners spend many happy hours making use of the wonderful collection of fiction and read the local and daily papers. Some people read for information and knowledge and for cultural development. Our local library is a very important asset. People without internet access come and make use the computers. Language cassettes are available and DVDs can be borrowed.
The friendliness and helpful advice of the librarians is something we cannot do without.
Please, please, do not even consider closing our wonderful library. Thank you.
In an era of encouraging children to read more than ever before, how can we justify closing libraries?
Also, as money is tight and books become less affordable, libraries will be needed more than ever.
old people like to read the papers there and children like the story telling and it is a place for young, old and all the shades in between to meet each other as well all the wealth of education and entertianment that can be found in books and the other services that libraires offer.