‘For me’, she says ‘public libraries matter because they help to give a focus and an identity to the community they serve’. And, what’s more she says, ‘reading is cool again’ thanks to the ‘headliners of the last decade that have made it so: Harry Potter, 50 Shades of Grey, Pride and Prejudice, The Da Vinci Code and Paddington Bear. Not necessarily all great literature, but they have encouraged complete strangers to talk to each other about books and their reading experience….. ‘.
What is a library and why do libraries matter?
Well, if you ask 40 people, the chances are that you will get 40 different answers because libraries mean different things to different people and people use libraries for different things at different stages of their lives.
For me, Public Libraries matter because they help to give a focus and an identity to the community they serve.
Whether it is information about the local area, clubs and societies, and activities for lonely people, the opportunity to feed a reading habit with bang up to date material or the need to access information about the major events in your life, such as a new job, your legal position in a dispute, what exactly the facts are behind the media reporting: a library can provide all of this.
It can help make sense of the morass of information that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. The phenomenon of ‘fake news’ has made people once again value the skills of a trained librarian who can act as an interpreter through this minefield instead of feeling that they don’t need them because everyone can use a search engine!
It can help you start your child or grandchild on a journey by providing one of their first cultural experiences at a Read and Rhyme time as they sit in an audience, sing along and react to a performance. At the same time, it provides a wealth of free material to stimulate their imaginations and open up the world to them at a time when they are most receptive and enquiring.
Increasingly, the public library service is opening people’s eyes to a wealth of opportunity in the digital age and supporting people who find the speed of technological change bewildering. It is also opening the doors to an age where we appreciate the role that art and culture have in one’s health and well-being as well as supporting people to navigate the tricky paths of finding health information.
Libraries are at the centre of strong, safe and sustainable communities, they help to give an identity to their community and they broker opportunity. They help to provide a future for children and young people and a community centre for older people. It is a known fact that proximity to a library is often a positive selling point for Estate Agents.
