Save Our Libraries

Today is a national day of protest in the UK aimed at drawing attention to the threat of closure of more than four hundred libraries across the country.

There have been some creative actions leading up to this, including the emptying of libraries by local residents borrowing their full allowance.

In Bradford District there has yet to be a firm decision on library cuts, but local politicians have not ruled anything out.

It is branch libraries, like my local one here in Baildon, that are most under threat. Opened by the mountaineer Chris Bonington in 1971, it is an invaluable community resource, key to much that goes on in the village. Today it was busy with the usual Saturday crowd as 3yo and I went to choose new books, and to pick up ones that we had ordered through the Bradford libraries online catalogue - we can draw on the entire stock of the city and the district, not just those in the local branch.

Perhaps the best way to keeping our libraries open is to keep using them, so if it's been a while since you last went to yours, why don't you pay it a visit.

a place to perch ~ where leaves ~ of a thousand books ~ are gathered ~ branch library