I have been chatting with the chair of one of the many 'Friends of ' library groups, and one email was so powerful that I asked permission to share it. The person who wrote it very kindly agreed, but said that since they had to work with their Council, would I make sure that I redacted any mention of who, what or where. I'm very happy to comply. Anyway, here it is:
As the Chair of one of the [place] libraries which are to become
community-run this year, I can tell you first-hand that even those of us who
have elected to take on our libraries rather than lose them altogether are under
no illusions that this is anything but a very bad deal all round.
The only minute consolation is that, despite the difficulties, having a
profit-making commercial company taking over would be even worse.
Needless to say, there was no real consultation, any proposed scheme to
make the same level of savings which did not conform to their pre-decided scheme
was summarily dismissed and County Councillors were overwhelmed with reports to ensure they did not appreciate the arguments.
We are under no illusion that we shall be able to provide anything like as
good a service as our village has enjoyed in the past. When the
next round of cost-savings arrives, we shall watch with sadness the
inevitable closures or community takeovers of those libraries currently
reprieved.
The Council expects us to hold a celebration on the day we take
over in [named library] and will be surprised when we'd rather hold a wake as
they seem to think they are doing us a favour in promoting "community-managed"
libraries. Have they been talking to the Arts Council, I
wonder?
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