From Guardian Books
Kensal Rise library in north London. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Brent council has been trying to shut Kensal Rise library down since the 1980s – and now a depressing piece of legalese is trying to help them on their way. The judgment delivered at the narrow, cold high court showed only the huge gap between the arcana of the judicial, bureaucratic mindset and the facts as seen by ordinary people: the library that generations of people in Brent have used, loved and paid their rates for is being stolen from us by a combination of our own Labour council and a coalition government that sits on its hands. Mark Twain, the great American writer who opened the library over a century ago, must be turning in his grave at Councillor Ann John's laughable statement that she is "pleased" because now Brent can "push ahead with our exciting plans to improve Brent's library service and offer a 21st-century service for the benefit of all our residents". Why is she excited by the thought of closing down half the libraries in a poor borough at a time when London's unemployment has hit a new high? Ordinary people all over the country will not be fooled. They know that closing libraries means that overstretched parents and childminders will no longer have a safe, warm place where they can take their small children after school. They know that teenagers with nowhere to study at home because the television is always on, or there are too many people in too few rooms, will no longer be able to sit down in quiet corners of a book-lined room and do their homework. They know that people who have lost their jobs, or never had a job, will no longer be able to come to a place where they need feel no shame and look up courses where they can learn or clubs they can join. They know that newcomers to the country will no longer be able to come in off our cold streets and read newspapers and magazines to learn the language, or find the whereabouts of colleges, clinics and schools. If libraries are allowed to close without a fight, how long will that other service that was once the envy of the world, the NHS, still survive? Oh, and the books. The stories that help us understand each other, the non-fiction that gives us the tools to survive in the world, the picture books that help toddlers make sense of themselves – are they to be only for rich people now? Brent's Labour council should hang their heads in shame.
