Solidarity with Libraries Across the Pond

I am a library lover and cannot remember any time in my life without them. Ok, my first steps may not have been taken inside one (wait, maybe they were !?), and I didn't meet my spouse there, but perhaps the next one. The only libraries not dear to my heart are the expensive elite ones, the closed ones.

Thanks to Former Rhode Islander (he used to write for the Providence Journal), Djelloul Marbrook, I have learned about a campaign in support of libraries in the UK.

The facebook page is called, Fight for Libraries, campaign from The Bookseller.

I was the 2,996th person to "like" this, and I see the number has reached 3,011.

Manifesto

We are fighting for public libraries because they form an essential seed-bed for the wider reading culture of the nation, a culture from which the whole of society benefits.

Libraries seed communities with books and ideas in a way which is irreplaceable. They provide books to people who wouldn’t otherwise see or afford them, the youngest in society, the oldest, and people on low incomes. They also provide free internet access to the 27% of the population who still aren’t online at home.

Libraries are also a forum where authors and readers can come together in a neutral, unbiased space - free from commercial pressures.

Most importantly they are curated by professional librarians who provide expert guidance for readers, helping people find the books and information they need, again free from commercial considerations.

Readers, reading and the values imparted are essential to any civilised society – indeed it seems impossible to conceive a civilisation without libraries.

We oppose the arbitrary, disproportionate and wantonly destructive nature of the cuts to the national library service now underway, and we will do everything we can to mobilise the entire book world in libraries’ defence.