Imagine you are one of the five million older people in the UK whose television is your main form of company.[1]Or a teenager, surrounded by noise, misunderstood by your family, and in need of some space, and printing facilities, to get your homework done. Or a person with a mental health condition who has no safe place to go. The library is a place where everyone is welcome to go, for free, to get peace of mind, to be away from the noise or equally, from the silence. To be with others, but not be in danger. Where the kindness, skill and assistance of trained library staff might just make a difference to their day, or to their GCSE grade, their feeling of self-worth, their future opportunities in the job market, or their ability to claim the benefits to which they have a right. In the face of unprecedented economic uncertainty and social isolation, fully resourced libraries, with their warmth, their open doors and their certainty, are needed more than ever.
And that’s before we’ve even talked about the Reading Agency’s research showing how books themselves can tackle loneliness, and improve mobility and mental health.
According to Arts Council England, the World Health Organization’s age-friendly cities initiative and Age UK, libraries are key to reducing social isolation (a risk factor for loneliness) and maintaining independence and wellbeing – enabling people to continue to claim their rights, build relationships, participate and contribute in later life. Despite this, and all the evidence that shows their role in education, to propping up the NHS, and their links to future earnings, libraries are still seen as a soft touch when it comes to budget cuts.
Save our libraries from catastrophic cuts
Earlier this month, we marched from the British Library to Westminster, in solidarity with all generations in all boroughs of the UK, many of which are experiencing the same threats to their library services. At the rally in Parliament Square, the point was made loud and clear that these services are not dispensable – in the words of Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Liverpudlian screenwriter and author, they ‘are not a luxury, not an add-on’ – but are absolutely central to the functioning of our communities and economies, and to the continuation of a long tradition of knowledge, culture and innovation in the UK.
The theme of loneliness, and libraries’ ability to stem that, recurred several times during the rally. The loneliness of a teenager in a new neighbourhood finding solace in the library, being helped to find some information by a librarian, the loneliness of an older person breaking up their day by visiting a library, finding a new interest in local history or simply solace in the companionable silence. The desolation of a homeless person, or of a family of refugees with nowhere else to go, walking into a library for tea and toast and a friendly face, and being directed via that library to the assistance they need.
In Lewisham, we are facing a new proposal to cut costs by £450,000, half the budget for an already decimated service. The flaw in this plan is that libraries are not a cost, but an investment, and cutting this vital service can only put more strain on other services. Cuts will mean reduced hours, reduced safety, reduced access for the people who need libraries most. The most marginalised in society will become ever more marginalised and socially isolated. An investment in libraries means more than an investment in books; it is an investment in the collective wellbeing of our communities, and with that wellbeing a collective ability to function well in society, to have the confidence to do things and be things, to contribute in turn to that society.
Libraries are the key to greater possibilities
If we lose our libraries, we lose something fundamental to ourselves. Libraries give us possibilities – not just knowledge, but the sense that we are worth investing in; that we are not alone.
An argument for reducing the funds is the decreasing usage – but this is a chicken-egg situation of a lack of investment. We still need our libraries, in ways that we might not appreciate until it is too late. Every time I go into Lewisham library, whatever the time of day or evening, it is full; you’d be hard-pressed to get a table. Often it is groups of teenagers studying or revising, children discovering new words and worlds, and people of all ages using the computers, or being signposted or asking for assistance from members of staff - or now, volunteers who, for all their best intentions, may or may not be able to deal with the more complex queries.
There is no getting away from the fact that libraries are a casualty of the wider ideology of austerity; leave the people to fend for themselves. Indeed, the UN’s damning report on UK poverty this week identified the closure of libraries as being damaging to society, and emphasised the need for safe community spaces in crowded cities like London.
Unfortunately for the Government, what they have not foreseen is that cutting council budgets in this appalling way will lead to increased pressure on all the other services that they are responsible for maintaining. It has been well-documented that inequality, which the continued austerity agenda is exacerbating, is bad for us all. Councils, too, need to recognise that when making the horrific budgeting decisions they must now make, that libraries are more than an extra; they are central to the connectedness of our communities.
Libraries can help end loneliness
The current Government has pledged in the past three Budgets to invest in mental health care. Although welcome, this is a tragic irony, since by reducing councils’ ability to run a proper library service, they risk exacerbating the mental health crisis. It is imperative that the Government, and all those with influence over it, begin to make the connection; libraries provide a safe haven for those on the very edges of society, and are an investment in our deep human need for connectedness to other people. They underpin all the services that enable people to fully function as part of their communities and economies. And with adequate funding and forward-thinking, libraries could play a huge part in ending loneliness.
Kate Horstead
[1]Age UK: Loneliness Evidence Review (2015)
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