Dear Supporters,
A gentle reminder, today 11th June a Full Council meeting will take place at Ealing Town Hall, where the Borough’s Councillors, including Cabinet members and portfolio holder for the libraries, Cllr Jasbir Anand, will make the decision on whether or not to implement the Council’s Draft Library Strategy 2019-23. Please come and join the protest to make our voices heard!
UNISON members in partnership with Save Our Seven Libraries campaigners representing all 7 libraries (Hanwell, Greenford, Northfields, Perivale, Pitshanger, West Ealing & Wood End Libraries) under threat, will assemble on the steps of Ealing Town Hall to ensure the Council is made aware of our presence and objections to the proposed library cuts.
Implications:
1) Six Libraries will be managed by the Council
2) Remaining 7 will be managed by a community organisation or offered to local communities to run/staff with volunteers
3) Paid professional staff will lose their jobs, causing more families to live in poverty
4) Unpaid volunteers (inadequately trained) will run the earmarked libraries
5) If no community groups come forward then the library concerned will close permanently
6) Some libraries will be relocated to alternative sites, the library site will be sold of to highest bidder
7) Valued mobile service used heavily by disabled & homebound users, will also be commissioned to voluntary sector
8) Library hours will be cut
9) Existent Central Library (already massively reduced) will be under pressure to take thousands more library users from the affected libraries
10) Libraries cost 2.19 million (15 January 19 Cabinet report). It has already made £3.78 million through privatisation & restructuring since 2013!
11) Children and young people (especially excluded teens) will be placed further at risk; given that 11 children centres in the Ealing borough also face closure too (Draft Proposal 2019-23)
12) Gina Baber’s research into ‘Positive & Negative Impact of Using Volunteers in Public Libraries(UCL, 2018) concludes, “volunteer-run libraries are not sustainable, and cannot run in an efficient, freely accessible and wholly ethical manner.” (http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/default.asp?section=info&page=ldrslibraries002.htm
13) Physical books still outsell online/E books (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/paperback-books-sales-outperform-digital-titles-amazon-ebooks
14) Having access to a local library is ecologically more conducive as more people walk to their library and the borrowing of books means fewer trees have to be destroyed, especially regarding children’s books, (Sue New, Northfields Library Campaigner
15) Local authorities have a duty, according to the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to provide a ‘comprehensiveand efficient library service’
16) National Libraries Campaigner, Alan Wylie, provides startling statistics to show how ineffective community managed libraries are in the UK (https://www.dropbox.com/h?preview=DATA+PROVIDE+BY+ALAN+WYLIE+AT+THE+EALING+TOWN+HALL+PUBLIC+MEETING+10TH+MAY+2019
Please see the Flyer & hope to see you there if you can make it.
Give thanks as always.
Grace (Akuba)