Why do libraries matter so much? Carnegie's occupiers let the poets explain

Amazing scene in SE24 yesterday afternoon: a young woman was reciting, with passion and clarity, a poem about one of London's great lost libraries, the old Whitechapel Library. She was reading this on the steps of another amazing but seriously threatened London library, the Carnegie Library, Herne Hill.

The poem, Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East, by Bernard Kops, described how this library gave him - as a drifting East End street urchin during the early years of the blitz - everything he needed to get going as a writer and to become the great playwright and poet we know today.

It includes these lines:

I emerged out of childhood with nowhere to hide
when a door called my name
and pulled me inside.

And being so hungry I fell on the feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.

And my brain explodes when I suddenly find,
an orchard within for the heart and the mind.

Plenty of other great poems were read out by people  both inside and outside the occupied Herne Hill

library.

Ted Hughe's late poem, Hear It Again, is another amazing work. Hughes had no doubt that libraries were not merely important, but a crucial factor in the development of civilisation.

He pulls no punches. In the first verse, he announces that the destruction of the library in Alexandria 14 centuries back "brain-damaged the human race".

Then these terribly prophetic lines, later in the poem:
And it's plain
Decay of libraries is like 
Alzheimer's in the nation's brain.. 


The traffic on Herne Hill Road at that time was busy. But whether coming up from Loughborough Junction or down from the leafy heights of Herne Hill, almost every vehicle slowed down and beeped its  support for the occupiers.

In fact, I counted twenty, in the space of about 3 minutes, and 17 of them beeped. They even made it difficult for some of the poetry readers to make themselves heard!

And it was not just private cars. The biggest beeps came from white vans, trucks laden with building debris and scaffolding, taxi cabs, scooters, minibuses, oh yes and Range Rovers and the occasional Audi. Even the police car that had been parked round the corner gave a  little peep as it drove off, and then a couple of growls from its siren.

There's no doubt whatsoever how deeply loved this library is. Nor how much respect there is for the people who are doing their best to save it from this strange Lambeth Council plan to instal some sort of gymnasium.

Attached to the locked metal gates outside the Carnegie Library,
Herne Hill, here's a message those wishing to gut this building need to
understand

We now know, thanks to the Brixton Buzz website,  that Lambeth has issued a possession order to evict the occupiers and get on with its ludicrous scheme of turning part of this dignified building into a gym.

I've read stuff from Labour councillors saying we shouldn't worry, that the library will re-open with the same books, etc etc. Well, I wonder about that.

The real, absolute killer in the Lambeth plan, which they freely admit, is that there will be no trained, paid library staff in the new "healthy living centre". So however many books they have there - and you do wonder who will be looking after them, replenishing stock, etc - there won't be anyone there to help you with informed, expert advice on where to look, or what to try.

And, while Bernard Kops' beloved Whitechapel Library has now closed (it is now part of the art gallery), at least that council (Tower Hamlets) provided a proper library building to replace it, staffed with real, paid librarians.

All strength to the Carnegie Library occupiers - and shame on cloth-eared Lambeth council

No, sadly it wasn't an April Fool's joke, but thanks to the brave and brilliant 80 or so people who locked themselves inside Herne Hill's Carnegie Library last night, Lambeth council's dismal scheme to turn this and other libraries into gyms is once again under  close media scrutiny.

A London borough council is supposed to be responsive to the views of its electorate, and to do its best to protect their interests.

For the past year or two, on the subject of libraries (not to mention housing estate regeneration)  Lambeth is doing precisely the opposite of this,  the opposite of serving its public.

This is a council that is planning to turn two of its best loved libraries - the Carnegie and the Minet at Myatt's Fields, both of which were donated by philanthropists to the people of this borough over a century ago - into gyms, so-called "healthy living centres" where you'll pay to get a bit of physical exercise. And to close another two.

That is to take away four of the 10 libraries that  are currently struggling to cope with demand of the borough's library users.

The anger this "culture 2020" policy has provoked can hardly have surprised the council. We've all been  marching and shouting and petitioning everyone possible about it for  the past year or so.

Each time they turn that big deaf ear to the protests they raise everyone's  determination to resist and overturn the bonkers gym idea.

So when, at 6pm, March 31 2016,  the Carnegie Library in Herne Hill was supposed to have closed its doors for good, and instead, dozens of users of this amazing library staged an occupation, what did they do? They called in the cops , of course.

Thing is, even the police only need to take one look at the beautiful Carnegie Library building to understand that the gym idea is not only absurd, but also immoral. As soon as you entered this library you realised it was a well-loved place. I mean, how many public libraries in London have their own "Reading and Wildlife Garden"?

The Carnegie is a beautiful place, designed  for a specific purpose, to be a place where people of all ages and backgrounds can  read, study, and learn in peace;  where people can share their love for books and literature and storytelling and information-giving. It has always offered more in the way of extra, volunteer-led activities for a huge range of interest groups, from toddlers to yoga freaks to chess players, than  almost any other library I have visited.

It even had a large exhibition space, which helped launched the careers of many local artists and photographers.

And what does the council say?

"Changes to Carnegie Library"

So, they suggest Carnegie Herne Hill users should try Brixton Central or West Norwood libraries instead. Good advice? Maybe not.

The clue is in the word, "Hill". The Herne Hill library is up on high, it serves a large area of residential streets, young families with young children in pushchairs,  also lots of elderly local residents.

 Lambeth tells them to get down to Brixton centre, then back up again? And when they get there, where will they sit?

Or all the way down, then up again, to West Norwood Library, which is itself in temporary accommodation? Is Lambeth going to offer free bus passes to this displaced group of library users, or a taxi service?

It's all worse than insulting! (And I am not even a regular Carnegie Library user, can't you tell? But I am a Lambeth council tax payer, and I am disgusted by the way they treat so many of their electorate as though they were naughty children, and then carry on perfecting their vanity projects).

Now the council has even admitted it doesn't have a detailed plan on how it will convert this building into a gym. Look at those beautiful parquet floors, then imagine how they will bolt down those absurd stationary bicycles you see in gyms. There's now talk of using the cellar, involving as lot of excavation and possibly the destruction of the garden. Just think of the costs.

It's all very well saying this. I'd be saying it even if the Carnegie were an ordinary public library. Thing is it's a very special place, but the tragedy is you won't be able to experience its magic again unless…unless the brave action of yesterday evening's occupiers finally makes this cloth-eared council listen, just for once!

The following pics, I hope,  show a bit of the passion of those defending this wonderful place, and a bit  of what you and me and all of us will lose if the council's plans for converting this place into a "bookish gym" actually go through.

The wildlife and reading garden at the Herne Hill Carnegie Library

Carnegie's staff and friends ensured that the library, if it had to close, would close with a bang or two, and not a whimper…and predicted that the closure would not be  permanent

Not the place for physical jerks: Lambeth's plans for libraries would get Carnegie spinning in his steely grave

Here's a community hub if you want one - the Carnegie Library on Herne Hill Road. Can you seriously imagine this being turned into a gym?

There's little doubt that the library-building philanthropist Andrew Carnegie will be spinning in his grave over Lambeth Council's policy on public libraries - which basically involves turning the magnificent library he part-funded on Herne Hill Road into a gym with a few books and PCs in the lobby.

Lots of angry words have already been written about this policy, which was sprung on Lambeth residents  in October and now has council approval. Read the response of the Friends of Carnegie Library for a fair summing up of the dissenting view. The scheme, as it stands, would bring in the sporty social entrepreneurs, GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd) to run these new "healthy living centres". Fine, if you agree this building should be turned into a gym. But it is a library, always has been, always should be. It was given to the residents of Herne Hill on the condition that it should always be a library.

Tomorrow (Saturday 7 November) there's to be a protest march and demonstration starting at Brixton Library in Windrush Square at 10.30am, and ending at the Tate South Lambeth Library where the councillor who cooked up the scheme, Jane Edbrooke, will be holding a surgery.

The Minet Library in Knatchbull Road, by Myatt's Fields park, would also be turned into what the Brixton Buzz is calling a "bookish gym" under the scheme. In all cases, the  "health and fitness services" will be offered by that same GLL. As for the library bit - well, that would be a sideline, a few  books for your kids to flick through while you pump iron. Worse still, this bit would be run by volunteers. Professional librarians? No, they're just so out of fashion, dear. We want personal trainers, not librarians!

So - not only do they plan to reduce community resources, they're also cutting jobs. Referring to Lambeth's own  Q & A on its so-called  Culture 2020 library plans, we find this: "...it is reasonable to assume that given the level of cuts in revenue this will lead to a reduction of approximately 25 per cent of the current workforce. That would include vacancies remaining unfilled and other staff losses. However the redesigned library services would potentially also be likely to create new job opportunities…"

Apart from being a redundant idea – how many privately-run gyms do we already have in Lambeth? – it's also an outrage from a borough which has always professed to be passionate about education and community. It might have started as a way to raise new funds in the face of savage cuts from central government - but now it seems like an absurd squandering of resources, designed chiefly to alienate library users of each and every ward.

"Anyone who loves and values and uses libraries, or who
has children who use them, should go on this demo. 

Libraries uniquely provide an oasis of quiet and calm for anyone who needs it - whether they be school kids revising for GCSEs or OAPs seeking a little warmth and company. Go to most Lambeth libraries at any time of day, and you'll find most of the desk and table space is taken up - certainly during term-time.

Anyone who loves and values and uses libraries, or who has children who use them, should go on this demo.  In fact everyone should go, because Lambeth's  remaining libraries provide an amazing service which goes way beyond maintaining collections of books, multimedia and periodicals.

On the way to the library,  a reminder of the affection
this place inspires in the leafy suburb of Herne Hill

But let's get back to the Carnegie Library in  Herne Hill. It's an ornate, Grade 2 listed building, in that 1900s red-brick, municipal arts and crafts style.  Even before you get there you can tell how much this place means to the local community.

It features on the decorative banners strung up (presumably paid for by the council?) on lampposts by hernehill.org, just to remind you where you are.

There's even a sign pointing to the library in the front window of a house round the corner - presumably to help lost Carnegie tourists.

Go inside it's just what you hope your local library will be: a beautiful space, huge windows, a lovely worn-down parquet floor. And books, books, books, books.

Yes, but they also have an exhibition room and they hold all manner of community events and classes - including yoga, pilates and other health-related sessions. At very low prices. Did Lambeth put all this into its pipe and smoke it, before coming up with this frankly crackpot scheme?

Now for Andrew Carnegie himself, the steel magnate, union basher and robber baron. OK, he was a monster capitalist, but later on he did his best to make amends in his philanthropy.

Yoga classes, pilates classes, etc…seems the Herne Hill library already
does plenty for health and fitness in the community...

Herne Hill is one of over 2,000 libraries round the world he wholly or partially funded.  In this case, he gave the council £12,500 in 1902 for building the library, midway between Herne Hill and Denmark Hill stations.

Carnegie was eager that his libraries should remain free to use in perpetuity, and should also adhere to certain standards. His libraries had strict rules, some of which still apply at the biggest of these institutions, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (the city was the centre of his steel business).

There, they warn against any "Disorderly, disruptive or boisterous conduct" and insist that "Customers are expected to maintain an acceptable standard of personal hygiene".

So, perhaps they are being a little exclusive? They are not keen on an influx of sweaty, boisterous types, and they also make it clear that "Shirts and shoes must be worn at all times".

Hmmm.

Again, for the full story of Mr Carnegie's deal with Lambeth back in 1902, go the Friends' website - where you'll see he was also concerned that they should guarantee their ability to maintain this building as a public library, out of public funds, for as long as it bears his name.

Meanwhile, visit these libraries if you can, as often as you can, and come on the demo. But try not to break into too much of a sweat….