In response to your editorial (Public libraries: Losing the plot, 26 August), the important issue is that all of us, of any age, should read, be it in book form or digital. Everyone should be able to access public library spaces, which are the last bastions of free knowledge. The discarding of trained librarians demeans their worth, but that is the trend we continue to see.
But sometimes a community has the will and determination to not lose their precious library, as can be seen by the history of Friern Barnet Community library; it was a challenge that the community rose to. Even after Barnet council closed it, the campaign carried on with pop-up library days and then occupation thanks to members of Occupy London. With the doors flung open again and thousands of books donated, it took repeated visits to court for the council to eventually hand the library back to local people, who now serve as trustees. And just maybe we are doing what other council-run libraries could take on board, this being that the community sees it as a library, a computer access site and a community space with an ever-changing range of activities.
Not everything is perfect and no one wanted the council-run library to close. However, we now have regular yoga lessons, Pilates, French rhyme time, local history talks, community police surgeries, councillor surgeries, “Any Questions” evenings with a range of panel guests, Socratic dialogue sessions, music evenings, private hire available, longer opening hours than any council-run library, knit-and-natter groups, sight-impaired group, toddler play section, book-signing evenings (including Will Self), strawberry teas, a comprehensive website, regular newsletters and even a couple of wakes following the funerals of local supporters. In short, it is a hub of local activity which the community will never ever give up.
Cllr Pauline Coakey Webb
Trustee, Friern Barnet Community Library
There would have been a time when one in three children without a book in the house would have demanded an enquiry into deprivation. I hesitate to write this because I love physical books, but does it mean that they do not read at all out of school? I am having to come to terms with electronic reading (it is surely a boon for those with visual impairment), and the library should be at the heart of electronic reading instead of competing with private providers. It should be a requirement that everything published is available digitally and for loan. Norway may be rich, but they don’t have to spend their money on the state library system, they choose to. If Britain is poor, it is becoming poorer for closing one in six public libraries and counting.
Dr Graham Ullathorne
Chesterfield
It was a kindly thought of Doris Lessing to bequeath her books to Zimbabwe (Report, 27 August). Even greater credit if she left money to transport the books there. England is awash with secondhand books, but getting those to the people in Africa who desperately want them will cost a lot more than the commercial value of the books. This is part of the worsening imbalance of wealth between the rich world and the poor world. Mugabe’s millions, stolen from his own poor, have been laundered in “respectable” tax havens, and quite likely helped City bonuses. The rich world needs to have a care for its own safety by showing more “enlightened self-interest”, and considering how the greed of the few affects the poor majority of the world.
As well as their religious motives, are not the jihadists of the Middle East a blowback of anger at the excesses of capitalism? Can we learn in time to restrain the currently unrestrained self-enrichment and evasion of responsibility by the few? Flagrant tax evasion by the rich seems a remote subject, but actually concerns every person in the world.
Jenny Tillyard
Seaford, East Sussex