Lambeth's library-loving residents get angry at extraordinary Carnegie Library meeting

Herne Hill's Carnegie Library packed with angry residents for a meeting to
discuss ways of resisting Lambeth's weird 'bookish gym' scheme

A meeting at Herne Hill's threatened Carnegie Library on Monday (November 17) evening sent out a loud, clear message to the council which is planning to close or re-purpose half of the borough's ten public libraries. The message was simply: "no!"

The library was packed. It was standing room only. The Lambeth library-using demographic was thoroughly represented, and the crowd, cheerful to begin with, grew increasingly angry as the absurdities of the council scheme, and the real danger of the loss of at least three treasured libraries - were examined in forensic detail by members of the Friends of Carnegie Library, by a Lambeth Unison rep, and by many, many speakers from the floor.

What became clear was that the Lambeth plan to hand three libraries - Carnegie, Tate South Lambeth and the Minet - over to GLL - were not merely unpopular and almost universally derided as "bonkers".

They were also strangely thin on detail - fuelling suspicion that there's a hidden agenda here, and that a real long-term aim could be to flog off some of the buildings (but not until the next local elections are safely in the past, that is post-May 2018).

Such speculation was based on some good digging-up of intelligence:  a land registry map of the Minet Library, for example, showed how it was not yet ripe for the property-development plucking, as there are two adjacent residential properties with windows overlooking the site.

Then there was the matter of the formation of a "shadow trust" to run the new "Healthy Living Centres".  As the same names of the same councillors cropped up time again, it seemed this was again just a hastily-formulated attempt to formalise the scheme. "Anyone can set up a trust. You just download a form from the Charities Commission, and fill it in."

A degree of scepticism was also noted regarding Lambeth's rejection of the librarians' own proposals to save all ten libraries. Their neat plan to save the requisite cash was rejected for lack of "a proper business plan".

We were then shown the business plan submitted by GLL: looked like one and half sheets of hasty Microsoft Word processing. No detailed financial breakdown.  The vagueness of it all - for example, the estimated cost of £1 million per library for conversion into a gym - was perplexing. Normally these planning and property developer deals are very efficiently cloaked in acres of luxuriant verbiage, charts, diagrams, spreadsheets, computer animations, and what have you.

One thing that is clear is that running gyms and leisure centres seems to be a damn good way of minting money. Apparently GLL, the Greenwich Leisure group that has been picked for this plum job, has been embarrassed by the money it has made from running Lambeth's recreation centres, and has generously decided to reinvest a million or so into these new bookish gyms.

Other speakers noted the importance of Vauxhall MP Kate Hoey's  referral of the Lambeth library scheme for judicial review. This, as one expert member of the audience pointed out, could be the real scheme-breaker, as Lambeth would have to prove they were not failing in their public duty to provide library services, and to give detailed reasons why they appointed GLL, and whether all due legal processes had been adhered to in deciding to hand public buildings over to a private concern.

The Friends of Carnegie Library were themselves consulting lawyers on the legality of the proposals.

As for the morality of the proposals - well, you don't need a Pope or Archbishop to tell you that the idea of an elected council deciding to dispose of properties that were donated to their local communities by individuals (Carnegie, Tate, William Minet) on strict conditions they should remain as community assets - is not merely wrong.

It is actually - if you'll excuse an outbreak of upper-case - BORDERLINE FREAKING CRIMINAL!



This meeting began at 7pm: by 8pm, when it should have ended, it was just hotting up.

People were volunteering, lists were being drawn up of skills, contacts. A local resident who'd run public consultations on a new park in New York offered to help with drawing up a business plan. A man from Wandsworth Libraries gave an account of their similar struggle two years ago, and how they'd emerged with some success - but only by keeping totally united.

By 8.30, people were arguing the merits of  a sleep-in at the Carnegie, should our worst fears be realised,  on April 1 2016.

The spirit of 68, or was it  76, or 81, or 89 (do I mean 1989 or 1789? I mean both!) was in the air. It was a brilliant meeting.

The next one is Wednesday 18th, at 6.30 at the Elmgreen School in Tulse Hill.

This is a full council meeting: The Friends of Carnegie and the Save Lambeth Libraries campaign will be handing in their petitions, all of which will have sufficient signatories to ensure the campaigns have the right to send deputations to the meeting. So it will be a crucial one.

PS: People wondering why the council is holding its big meetings in schools were reminded that the main council chamber in Brixton is currently closed. The old Town Hall on the corner of Acre Lane is being redeveloped, and the council is building a new town hall further up Brixton Hill. At some expense. A bit more than the cost of keeping these libraries going….? No, surely not.

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….