Happy New Year to all our supporter of the Upper Norwood Joint Library. 2016 see us resolute to maintain a properly funded and professionally staffed library for all the community of Crystal Palace. News Update: A detailed proposal to retain all ten Lambeth libraries has gone to Lambeth Council At the beginning of January Susanna Barnes, Head of Libraries, sent Lambeth Council officers her plan to maintain a full service at all ten Lambeth libraries while making all the savings required by the Council in the next four years, on a financially sound calculation. This would be achieved through a staff/community mutual trust, on a pattern developed in other parts of the country including York and Suffolk. The background The proposal was first put to Lambeth officers last April during the public consultation on the Council’s proposals for cultural services policy to 2020. It was not taken forward by Council officers who instead put forward their proposal for half of Lambeth’s libraries to become library service points with minimal book and computer provision and no staff, and with three of these to be centred on a gym. The Upper Norwood Library it was envisioned would cease offering a statutory provision of library service and would effectively be decommissioned with no permanent staff and the building transferred to the Upper Norwood Library Trust with a much reduced amount of financial support. The council officers’ proposal – set out in the document Culture 2020 – was approved by the Council last October. However Council officers were forced – by popular pressure and the recommendations of a Council committee – to offer an opportunity to the Libraries manager to develop her proposals. The next steps The mutual trust proposal is now on the table. Discussions between Ms Barnes and Council officers will take place in January. As soon as the proposal is made public – the Upper Norwood Library Campaign and Friends of Lambeth Libraries hope that this will be before the end of this month – we will give everybody a chance to examine the proposals. On behalf of the Upper Norwood Library Campaign I will be meeting with library staff and I have asked for a meeting with the Upper Norwood Library Trustees to discuss the implications for our much loved library and Crystal Palace’s resolve to retain a properly funded professionally staffed library service for the residents of our 5 boroughs. Kind Regards, Robert Gibson Upper Norwood Library Campaign