Public Library and Other Stories

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Kensal Rise Library, built by public subscription on a site donated by All Souls College, Oxford, was ceremoniously opened by Mark Twain in the year 1900.

It was closed by Brent Council in 2011 and sold to a property developer called Platinum Revolver.

Public pressure to save and protect the library has been so strong over the past four years that the property restorers now working on the site converting the space into flats (Uplift Property, whose marketing hook is ‘homes to make you happy’) have been forced to produce redevelopment blueprints which include both designated public space and designated library space.

This is what Pat Hunter told me:

Libraries have been a focal point in my life and work for seventy-five years. In my childhood (born 1932) one could only be enrolled at the library at seven years of age. In 1939 I did so with a sense of great awe and excitement. In 1949, at seventeen years, I went from sixth-form grammar school to work and train as a librarian, and finally retired in 1996 after forty years’ service. In all those years I saw the value of and need for libraries to all the population.

The importance of libraries was recognized by the Public Libraries Act 1850 and affirmed by the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. In all the media mention of cuts to services in libraries I heard no reference to these Acts or any other statutory requirement for the provision of libraries — nor have they been rescinded.

Because libraries have always been a part of any civilization they are not negotiable. They are part of our inheritance.