LITTLE BADGES - LET'S ALL SAVE NORBURY LIBRARY

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Hi

The virtual kettle's on..... So while I let it boil I just have this to say

thebiglittlebadgeco.com proud to be supporting SAVE NORBURY LIBRARY.....AND NORTHAMPTON....AND KINGSTHORPE.....AND......WELL ALL OF THEM.

BUY SAVE NORBURY BADGES HERE

I spent my young life in local libraries, my college years in libraries and my later years in libraries researching my family tree (oh please let one of them be a rich land owner and not a farm hand) so for the life of me....... I cannot for the life of me think of one good reason why local authorities like Croydon council and many others across this once great country would want to close them down... not one.

I can think of many bad reasons...but will come to them later.

I could not...and cannot imagine going through life not being able to read and write. It would be like having a blank spot in my life. Trees, would seem less green, simple tasks would become mammoth and unbearable tasks, street signs would be unreadable...oh yes and those pesky ballot papers would just be a blur. Maybe that is why they have the little logos on the ballot paper.

My first experiences of libraries that I can remember are when we used to go up to the Whitehills pub car park (I never said I come from a classy area) and climb into, what seemed like then, a MAMMOTH mobile library van. It was magical. Well technically it wasn't but it felt like it. Giant pictures of the Hungry Caterpiller, small tables for us little ones, low sections of children's books for our little hands to grab, and towering shelves to the roof of the wagon with more adult fiction. Books which would later be available to me because of my ability to read.

Yes I know with age, things become rose coloured.... dog mess was white then, and you could buy penny sweets for a penny... but without this service my whole life would have been blighted.

I would not have developed an imagination (some say over active), I would not have developed a craving for knowledge, I would not be able to write these words now, without the wonder years of learning behind me.

Such books as Roald Dahl's The Twits, Swallows and Amazons, Stig of the Dump, The Hungry Caterpillar, The Hobbit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Railway Children, Tom's Midnight Garden.... would have all been just titles on a shelf.

The local library was somewhere for us to meet and interact with other kids.... for my mum who had the unfortunate job in life of looking after me and my sister, a break to chat with fellow mums.

The thing about books is....once you read one...you want to read another...and another. You are like a sponge and let's face it, there are so many books in the world that I will never read them all in my lifetime.

From the mobile library, we were lucky that Kingsthorpe got it's own Library. I moved onto Dr. Who books, Tin Tin, and was able, due to their extensive stock, to work my way through them all. The Cybermen were scarier in my mind than on the television.

And when Kingsthorpe library no longer had the stock I needed, I was fortunate to be able to go into the town centre...to the mother of all libraries. Such a stunning building (always thought I was going to see the librarian ghost from Ghostbusters in there) it demanded respect from me.

Northampton Library was the elder brothers of all the other libraries... I learnt respect, I learnt manners, I learnt to interact with the professional librarians who were only too happy to help you further your reading. I also learnt to use the reference library, which helped me understand the past and history of where I was born. To complete school projects with a vast array of knowledge, a place to lose yourself and really concentrate without the buzz buzz and beep beep of modern life.

I later returned from London to Northampton on various trips to spend happy afternoons in the library researching my family history. Where oh were will this amazing reference material disappear if our libraries disappear! Lost forever, or transferred to computers that can......FAIL.

Between college and my first job...I used the library to photocopy the jobs pages from the advertising industry magazines, and sit in the library and write to all the job applications. For £1 I could get the information from 5 different magazines (Creative Review, Campaign, etc.) which would have cost me well over £12 if I bought them all.

And when I got my first job in Advertising (as the internet had not been totally rolled out then) we had an account with the local library near Great Portland Street.

So like I say....I can think of no good reason to close libraries.

In Norbury...that is all we really have from Croydon council. All our council tax goes into trying to keep the white elephant of Croydon from financially sinking, and into projects to deal with the problems of Croydon. In Norbury...or 'Forgotten Norbury' as I like to call it, we do not have the big businesses, the shiny buildings, the cleaner streets, the transport links that Crydon enjoys.

You can count on your hands the amount of times Norbury has benefitted from Croydon Council money.... we have finally got more than one bin on the high street, and that is only due to the persistance of local residents associations.

But, the council believe that we in NORBURY can do without a library.....and could have book tokens to buy our books as that would work out cheaper than keeping a library......

See article on Councilor Sara Bashford: http://insidecroydon.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/bringing-crass-councillor-bashford-to-book-over-library-costs/

The thing is... apart from being wrong about the cost of books compared to the cost a library can purchase and lend them for.... we don't even have a BOOKSHOP in Norbury! Pure Croydon council logic at it's best. Instead they keep giving out shop permits for restaurants and fast food chicken shops...because it's more important to eat unhealthily than to educate our youngsters.

The main reasons we may well lose our Norbury library are that we in Norbury are under a Labour run ward....And Croydon Council is a Tory run Council. Plus the library currently sits on some very valuable land that the council would like to get their hands on for building more flats along the London Road to meet their quotas. It is nothing to do with the library being underused. It is always busy with parents and children, retired adults, jobless and students......

...It is due to Croydon Council's short sightedness, for a quick buck..... Once these libraries are closed, they will never reopen! Full stop.

So I urge you all to join library read-ins across the country this Saturday 5th February and show these cultural neanderthals at Croydon Council and your local councils that destroying a generations quest for education and personal improvement is one step too far.

For more details of NORBURY library READ-IN go here:

NORBURY GREEN RESIDENT'S ASSOCIATION

So much for this trademarked 'BIG SOCIETY'

Well, I can hear the kettle has just finished boiling so

Milk and sugar?

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