Suzanne Askham

Fiction notes: This is why libraries matter

Yesterday I discovered that my local library was built on the site of a long-vanished Royal palace. On the outside, the building is an unremarkable, 20th Century design. But inside, it’s sheer magic. There are stories to lose yourself in, factual books to learn from, and a huge digital resource of free knowledge and entertainment.

In the library, children develop life-long reading skills which increase their opportunities to thrive. Older people come for company, for fiction, and to learn something new. As a free community resource, there’s always something going on: rhyme time; board games and hot chocolate; book clubs, home library deliveries…

When I recently returned after a long absence, I wondered why I’d stayed away. The reason, I decided, was a bad habit of handing books in late, and having to pay a fine. But nowadays there’s an app for that! You receive a polite reminder, and an invitation to renew with a simple button-touch.

Friendly, inclusive and educational, public libraries deserve to be cherished. In an era which has seen hundreds of library closures, a thousand redundancies and reduced investment in stock, we can unfortunately no longer take these wonderful places for granted.

My local library is quite simply a treasure… and from this point on, through being a member and also volunteering there, I’m doing my bit to support it.