February Continuance: Walk 2.7 miles, Time 40min, Weather - very blowy
This might not be the most beautiful library in the world but it is our library. It may be a standard 1960s building, in municipal box style, but inside it is welcoming and it is important to our community.
Today is Save our Libraries day and up and down the country there have been events to protest against the massacre of library services. There was nothing in Hemel because it is not under threat - in fact no Hertfordshire library is currently threatened with closure. The plan is to reduce opening hours and reduce staff numbers, with fewer qualified librarians. However the core services will remain.
On the whole I think I live in a fairly civilised county, where there is a recognition that libraries are too valuable to be casually tossed aside. They do not want to close any libraries because they know that once the buildings are gone, they will never be replaced and the service for that locality will be lost forever.
But who knows if they can hold that line forever. There are cold winds blowing I don't know where we can find shelter.
So today I went to the library to borrow some books. I wanted to join all the others using their library today.
Oh - and one of the books I borrowed was the biography of Alan Silllitoe, which I though appropriate as it ties in with nominal subject of this blog: he was the author of 'The loneliness of the long distance runner'.
3 comments:
I love libraries. Every community should have one and both adults children should be encouraged to use them as much as possible.
Sillitoe! Just the thing. Well done for joining in. It was a fantastic day; there were events in well over 100 libraries
Rl - I could not agree more
Tom - The book about Sillitoe is just the thing and a good example of why we need libraries. We need to keep alive interest in the work of such people after they have fallen out of fashion.
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