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January 21, 2008
Swindon is closing the Old Town library
From Shirley Burnham
"Our small library in Old Town, Swindon, is earmarked for closure, ostensibly to help pay for the running costs of a new super-library in the town centre, once it is fully commissioned. My petition against this proposal has so far gathered about 76 names. Any advice? I have got into the local paper and may go on local radio this week. there does not seem to be any public consultation that I have heard of, nor have the local councillors responded to my emails or even acknowledged them. I fear the library will close willy nilly."
Shirley- find the names of the cabinet members of the council. Get a local printer to print cheap day glo "Save Old Town Library" posters. Get school children to take the posters around schools and also put the posters through the doors of every house in the streets where the councillors live. Make sure they (and their families) see them as they leave their houses. Tell the Swindon Advertiser to doorstep the councillors and ask their own view about closure. We'll post the names of the councillors on here shortly
Here are the members of the cabinet of Swindon council who have decided covertly to close the Old Town library. Shame on them. You can be sure there is no need to do this.
Posted by Perkins at January 21, 2008 2:21 PM
Comments
Here is Hove, for an outlay of £70 on 5000 posters, we stopped the Council from closing down the renowned Carnegie Library and got them to spenmd £330,000 to carry out the delayed repairs and maintenance.
The thing about a campaign is not to fire off all weapons at once but to do so bit by bit. This keeps the story going.
Far better than a petition, although that is useful (if it gets publicity), is to encourage people, via a leaflet, to write/e-mail to the salient councillors, and it can be most effective to write to the opposition parties, who then scent votes.
A stream of letters to the local paper. Better several letters with one or two points than one which makes all the points.
A good place to give out posters is by the Library, and once a few go up, everybody will want one. Very effective is Simpsons yellow with bold black print (capitals). Houses on bus routes are very good to get them in - seen by people going by.
Parents here told me that their children liked to go round and count them.
Under cover of darkness we got the first of ours out that cold winter in the street where the relevant councillor lived (carefully avoiding her house). Everybody put one up in that road and the next. I later heard, as I suspected, she came out the next day, walked along - and blew up!
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at January 24, 2008 5:37 PM
We were very fortunate that Councillors did listen to our concerns and gave the library a reprieve, to be reviewed in April 2009. We have been told to "use it, or lose it" so are working to raise its profile in the community and encourage more people in. Attendance is now a lot better than before and we are cautiously optimistic for the future. See what we've been doing, by looking at our website (using Internet Explorer) on www.friendsofoldtownlibrary.co.uk
Thank you to all those who continue to give us their sterling support.
Posted by: Shirley Burnham at August 14, 2008 5:39 PM