This is just to let you know
Each letter is addressed to the Minister who had responsibility for libraries in their portfolio at the time the library mentioned in the letter closed permanently. Each letter begins ‘This is just to let you know’ and names the library, where it is located and the date it closed permanently.
The timeline of the letters is from 2011-2017 which saw the greatest decline in public library provision in England. Librarians will understand why I have chosen the writer of these letters to be William Ewart.
This work would not have been possible without the unstinting efforts of librarian, Ian Anstice to record changes to public library services; closures and public libraries taken out of local authority control, on the website he created Public Library News. This became the only source of real time information on the huge changes which were happening within the public library sector during these years.
All 63 letters will be posted on twitter and uploaded here over the course of 2022.
Purpose of the work
I wanted to mark and commemorate these libraries, the people who used them and the people who worked in them. It is not a comprehensive list of libraries which have permanently closed and neither is it primarily a political statement. I wanted to name as many libraries as possible over this five year period. There is an inherent beauty in the names of these libraries. They conjure up whole worlds.
Background information
Use of public libraries has been declining over the past two decades although there are nuances to this. Usage amongst some demographic groups has held strong. Of all the art and leisure activities public libraries enjoy the greatest diversity of users.
How people access information and leisure resources has changed hugely over the past twenty years and this together with other societal changes has impacted on the public library service we have been familiar with. There has been a decline in numbers of professionally qualified staff in public libraries, and a decline in funds received from local authorities. Although a statutory service, public libraries have had to compete with other statutory services for lower levels of central funding.
But there has also been a lack of political will to see and understand the importance and relevance of public libraries, to look beyond the walls to a new librarianship, one which other countries have been more ready to embrace. There has been a blind spot as to the beauty, simplicity and function of a well funded and lauded public library service.
Inspiration for the format of the work comes from ‘The dying star letters’ by Katie Paterson which I saw as part of her exhibition ‘A place that exists only in Moonlight’ at the Turner gallery, Margate in 2019. This project sees the artist send a letter to her professor to let them know that a star in our galaxy has died (quite a regular occurrence it would seem). I found this work poignant; vast in its scope and yet so simple. The project began in 2011 and I think continues.
I dedicate this work to my fellow librarians
Jacqueline May, MCLIP, 2021
Site Title library letters 63 