National Libraries Day

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National Libraries Day

Libraries in the UK are loved, valued and were visited an astonishing 265 million times last year! Libraries are a vitally important public service which can be celebrated on National Libraries Day, this Saturday 6 February 2016. The NLD website has suggestions for activities, downloadable resources and an event map – or check out what your own local library is doing. Mine, Glasgow’s Mitchell, is revealing the Top 10 Burns poems and songs as voted for by its users, with a recital of the Top 5 and a display of Burns Treasures.

Why should you support libraries? Did you know that every week two libraries in the UK close their doors for good? If you don’t use them yourself, is it because you can afford to buy books and pay for a good broadband connection? But what if you couldn’t? As Nick Poole says in a recent Mirror article “It’s hard to understand the impact of these cuts when you’re well-off, have easy access to the internet and can buy the books you want. But for millions of poor families, jobseekers and people with disabilities a library is a lifeline.”

CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) is running a campaign called My Library By Right. Follow the link if you’d like to know more, and please, please sign their petition along with (so far) almost 12,000 other people, including famous authors such as Joanna Trollope and Andrew Motion. Signing it would be a great way to celebrate National Libraries Day.

PS I hope regular readers aren’t too bemused by the sudden appearance of a library-themed post. I used to blog semi-regularly at Adventures of a Retired Librarian but I’ve decided to let that lapse and concentrate my efforts here, so you’ll be seeing occasional posts about libraries and books.

Books and Libraries

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  1. I don’t get to visit my local library as much as I used to, which is a shame. They’ve always been fantastic about ordering books in for me on Inter-Library Loan; 70p for a book I’d have to pay £7 for to buy it myself!

    Of course, when I was at Jordanhill I practically lived in the library! 😉

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  2. It was a rotton rainy day down here today so didn’t get out and visit the library. So don’t know if they had any activities for National Library day. My daughter used to work in a branch library. She enjoyed working there with a nice group of co-workers and then was redeployed to a different branch due to curbacks (she’s at University now). I fear fo the future of librairies as havng books available for free is not a priority by this Government

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    • No, it is not. They just don’t see the value of libraries 😦 It’s especially stupid not to support them when at the same time they are transferring so much online, job seeking etc. Many people still don’t have Internet access and the library is a good place to get it with staff who can help. Libraries also = literacy and an informed and educated population. Perhaps they don’t want that though!

      Glad to hear your daughter enjoyed working in a library.

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  5. Hi Anabel – I’m not good at using our library and really should do so more … I remember at times – but have always relied on books at home etc … I shall go down tomorrow .. cheers Hilary

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  6. When I was younger, I was borrowing books at the library all the time, then a bit later, I studied over there. Now.. I mostly visit them for my pleasure. Last one I visited was in Manchester and it was really interesting !

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  7. I can’t wait until I’m in Vancouver… they have this awesome public library that I can’t wait to spend a ton of time at. 🙂

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  8. I love libraries! We go to our local library all the time. We all love to read, and they also have a board game night my son enjoys. Our library was expanded a couple of years ago, so now they have many more programs and fun things going on there. I couldn’t imagine living in a place that didn’t have one.

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  9. I am an avid user of Public Libraries though a fairly recent one (even though I am a trained librarian but I only ever work in corporate business libraries and only for a few years before moving on to other roles). I used to buy all of my books as I like to keep them and sometimes reread them. But as we have now moved into smaller space, our books had to go and we have no space to add more so I started using the library (both actual books and e-books) and love it. I do have to sometimes reserve the book I want because otherwise I would never get it but it simply needs a bit of organizing what I want to read. It is also a great way to save money…

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  10. Our fine city just spent s big chunk of change redoing the brickwork on our library. Major undertaking. Proud of our officials for not letting it go beyond fixing. Great post!

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