“The library runs on praise”
Since 2016, more than 180 council-run libraries have either closed or been handed over to volunteer groups in the UK. How can volunteers run libraries effectively? To find out, I visited 2 of them.
I first had a glimpse of Cricklewood Library in September 2023 when I attended a talk there by Imogen Clark, one of the founders of Make Space for Girls, a campaign for better public spaces and parks for teenage girls launched in 2020.
It was a Saturday afternoon and the community-led library was closing for the day straight after the talk. I was there long enough to detect a cozy and friendly vibe that picked my curiosity. So, on September 23rd, almost a year to the day since my first visit, I made my way to Cricklewood Library to immerse myself in one of those rare community spaces in my home borough of Brent.
Although I live in Church End and Roundwood - a mere 14 minutes by bike, according to Google maps - getting to Cricklewood Library is far from straightforward as I refuse to use Dudden Hill Lane, an A road with no separated cycle lane. Travelling to the library by public transport is not a better option for me though. The bus that stops closest to the library is the 226 line to Golders Green but it leaves from Willesden bus garage, a 20 minute walk away from my house. A good illustration that not all parts of London are easily accessible by public transport. Cricklewood is certainly one of them.
When I eventually get to Cricklewood Library on my cargo bike after some meandering through the back streets of Willesden Green, I feel a sense of achievement. An hour and a half later, after talking to Sally Long - the chair of the charity that runs the library - around a cup of coffee in the library, I am even more positive about my decision to come and spend some time at Cricklewood Library. It’s been the best start to my week since I helped deliver a baby at the back of a car on April 22th in Harlesden (maybe a story for another newsletter).
Cricklewood Library, a hive of activity
Located by the east side of Gladstone Park, a 35 hectare public park, Cricklewood Library occupies the ground floor of a new building. With patio doors looking onto the street, it strikes me as the perfect addition to the outdoor public space which is not bound by any barriers. The connection between the two community assets is almost seamless. However, the library does not only stand out thanks to its architecture : once you’ve pushed its doors, it’s obvious that Cricklewood Library is a hive of activity for people of various ages and interests.
As Sally Long is taking her dog for a short walk in Gladstone Park, I get a chance to observe the hustle and bustle of the library on a Monday morning right after it opens its doors at 10am.
An older man grabs a newspaper and sits down on the sofa facing the park. A woman carrying a baby in a sling orders a coffee and a slice of homemade cake from Wendy Tyrrell. Wendy, one of the trustees of Cricklewood Library, normally takes care of marketing, volunteer management and fundraising but is doing a barista shift on that day. Meanwhile, a group of older people comes through the door chatting. They are here to attend one of the popular free seated exercise classes funded by the library.
Cricklewood Library strikes me as a busy place with the atmosphere of a permanent village fête where people of different generations and walks of life can enjoy shared interests and meet up - be a community.
Wendy, who has “gradually got sucked into the library project” and “basically runs the library” according to Sally, tells me that 17 000 people came through the door in 2023. For reference, that’s more than the population of the Cricklewood and Mapesbury ward - 14 140 inhabitants - where the library is located.
“A dream come true”
It’s easy to see why the library attracts so many people and no doubt a lot of very regular visitors. The events schedule is jam-packed from Monday to Sunday. Cricklemovers, Cricklereaders, Cricklesingers, Cricklewriters and more groups run weekly events or monthly meetings at the library.
On the last Friday of every month, the library turns into a music venue. Live music performances are held there, including jazz nights organised by Alan Carter, one of the volunteers. “Alan orders pizzas for the night on behalf of the concert ticket holders”, Sally Long marvels during our conversation. She seems almost incredulous that the library and café she dreamed up 12 years ago had not only been up and running since October 2021 but also hosts jazz and pizza nights. She also proudly informs me that a very active knitters’ group that she started - despite not knowing how to knit herself - knits blankets for neonatal units among other “purposeful projects” and acts as a support network for its members.
For Sally, whose middle daughter spent hours reading in the previous council-led library, Cricklewood Library is simply “a dream come true”. In 2012, she joined the campaign to save the previous library but tells me that, when it became clear that Brent council would not change their minds about the closure of 6 libraries across the borough, she quickly started working on the project of a new community-led book space.
Securing a space for the new library right where the old library building used to stand between 1929 and 2011 proved difficult. Fitting the 2000 square feet (185m2) bare space leased to the charity by Octavia Housing with water and electricity, library shelves, a wooden floor, a café etc. turned into a very costly entreprise - “It cost us £400k to fit out the space despite the fact that we were given a lot of stuff”, Sally tells me. Now, three years after the library opened up to the public, the challenge is to keep it running and continuing making an impact in the community thanks to volunteers.
An uplifting visit
“The library runs on praise. People must be thanked all the time and any conflict has to be resolved quickly”, Sally sums up. It is open 25 hours and a half a week for library visitors and extra hours for group activities and private hires. It requires a budget of £70k per year to run - and almost bottomless energy and good will from a core team of about 15 volunteers. “We’d like to hire two people to run the library”, Sally adds. However, at the moment, only the cleaners and the person in charge of renting out the event rooms are paid a wage.
The baristas are volunteers and need to do four shifts during the week to be able to run the café by themselves. It’s difficult to imagine Cricklewood Library without the café. After my interview with Sally, I linger there for a bit. Fresh from their seated exercise class, two women are having a conversation about the wonder of learning languages and French literature. As a French speaker myself, I chip in and we chat for about 10 minutes or so. Spontaneous exchanges with strangers are a great antidote to loneliness. They are great mood enhancers.
After my short immersion in Cricklewood Library, I cycle back home on a high. I feel full of admiration for Sally Long, Wendy Tyrrell and all the people involved in the running of Cricklewood library. I am also quite envious of Cricklewood residents and all the opportunities they have to practice hobbies and meet new people on their doorstep. In a borough largely deprived of community centres, being able to mingle with neighbours in a cozy and friendly space stands out as a luxury.
It doesn’t mean that I wish existing council-led libraries were replaced by community-led ones. Over the last 12 years, I’ve been involved in too many community initiatives to be aware that we shouldn’t romanticize volunteer-led projects.
Getting a project off the ground when it relies entirely on people’s free time is ambitious. Keeping the cogs of a volunteer-led project turning for years is nothing short of a prowess. It requires a lot of management skills but also, I think, a quiet and steely sense of confidence in yourself as well as a huge amount of faith in the human condition. It’s interesting that Sally Long, who describes herself as “very opinionated”, has been a buddhist for 30 years.
Spurred by my visit to Cricklewood Library and willing to get a closer look at the engine room of community-led projects, I decided to visit Kensal Rise Library the week following.
Kensal Rise Library, inaugurated by Mark Twain and reopened by the community
Back in 2010, Kensal Rise Library closure by Brent council made national headlines. There was a general sense of outrage in the community that Brent had decided to close half of its 12 libraries but the shutting down of Kensal Rise library sparked a singular wave of mobilisation from local families and writers, probably because of its unique history. The original reading room that preceded the library was erected thanks to public fundraising at the start of the XXth century and was inaugurated by American author Mark Twain in 1900.
On my visit to Kensal Rise Library on September 27th, I was welcomed by Stephanie Schonfield, a local resident and library campaigner who is the part-time paid library manager of the community-led library.
It’s been just over 5 years since the library reopened its doors during a very well-attended event. It’s a bright and modern venue, very similar in size to Cricklewood Library. With more space dedicated to books, 8 computers accessible to library members and a reception desk, Kensal Rise Library has more of a traditional feel although it also hosts a range of community activities such as rhyme times for babies, yoga lessons as well as pop-up initiatives like the recent CPR training in partnership with the London Ambulance Service (see photo further down).
The library, located in the Harlesden and Kensal Green ward, shares a common history with Cricklewood Library. Both of them were built on land donated by All Souls College, an academic research institution part of the University of Oxford. Stephanie starts by refreshing my memory about the long and rather convoluted history of the building. “The land on which the library was built was given to the community by All Souls College. Although All Souls never paid any money towards the building, it was returned to them by the council because of a clause saying that the land should be returned to All Souls if it ceased to be used for the purpose of a library”, she spells out.
When the council announced its intention to close down the library in 2011, the community formed the charity the Friends of Kensal Rise Library which put a business plan together and campaigned against closure even taking the council to the High Court. Sadly, they lost in court, Brent council rejected their business plan to run the existing library as a community group and the building was returned to All Souls college which sold it to an Irish company called Platinum Revolver. The latter sold it again to another developer, Uplift, which has since been dissolved.
A few building issues but plenty of warmth
In 2018, seven years after the shutting down of the historic library and a flurry of fundraising activities by local writers and artists, Friends of Kensal Rise eventually got the key to the ground floor of the refurbished building - divided into a main space and a meeting room. It was a new milestone in the more than centenary history of the library. However, because of the feudal nature of English property law, the re-opening of the library in September 2019 did not put an end to the long saga of hurdles that the Friends of Kensal Rise Library had to overcome.
Friends of Kensal Rise Library are at the very bottom of the building’s pecking order. As leaseholders, they are at the mercy of the freeholders of the building, who are the owners of the flats located above the library.
This put the community library in a vulnerable position. The same is true of Cricklewood Library, by the way. They do not own the freehold of the building or even part of it.
In the case of Kensal Rise library, the two-tier English property law coupled to some shoddy building repair work resulted in a £12 000 roof repair bill in 2021, just two years after the reopening of the library. Local actors and artists came again to the rescue of the library by taking part in fundraising events but there are still some damp spots in the ceiling of the library that need repairing, Stephanie Schonfield pointed out to me during my visit.
There is much more to write about Kensal Rise Library than just the pitfalls that Friends of Kensal Rise Library had to overcome since 2011. The library was used as a Covid-vaccination centre. It’s a polling station on election days. It’s also part of the Warm Welcome Spaces’ network.
I think the most striking feature of both Kensal Rise Library and Cricklewood Library is that they are not anonymous places. That’s why they stand out so much from so many other places that I have visited in the borough.
When I was talking to Stephanie Schonfield, a group of young teenagers rushed in, straight from school, to play on the computers. Stephanie greeted a couple of them by their names. “They are in secondary school now. Before the summer, they told me that they would stop coming but they haven’t”, she smiled.
Up until that day, I had not been able to pin down exactly why community-led spaces are just an vital addition to council owned and led spaces. Now, I know.
They are places that you can visit without any invitation, where you don’t have to spend any money and where you are greeted by your name. They are spaces and organisations that are well-worth supporting because they enrich our lives.
Cricklewood Library, 152 Olive Road, London, NW2 6UY
Kensal Rise Library, Bathurst Gardens, London, NW10 5JA
P.S: Brent counts another two community-led libraries, Preston Road Library and Barnham Community Library. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit those libraries yet but I would like to, especially Barnham Library as it is under threat.
P.P.S: I originally wrote that the café doesn’t make money. I stand corrected by Sally who wrote to me : “the café does make money but is mainly staffed by volunteers”.
Brent news
📮Cricklewood, Harlesden, Kilburn High Road and Kingsbury Post Office branches are threatened with closure. Out of the 115 stores earmarked by the PO for closure across the UK, 28% are located in London. A petition to Save Cricklewood Post Office has already gathered more than 500 signatures so far.
💷 Brent council’s finances are at breaking point - just like a lot of other London boroughs. The council plans to raise council tax by the maximum legal amount again next year (4,99%) to keep afloat. Brent needs to save £16 millions to balance its budget in 2025/2026. You can see the draft budget here and have your say as well.
😲 The BBC reported on Monday that “seven blocks of flats in north, north-west and west London had been discharging waste into the rivers Crane and Brent”. Ben Morris, founder of the Clean Up the River Brent campaign (Curb), is quoted saying : "It's like going back to the mid-19th Century when there were no water treatment works.” The story made the front page of Metro on Monday! Read their article.
Opportunities
🏠 Dot Dot Dot is looking for property guardians for 1, 2 and 3 bedroom properties located 5 minutes away from Queen’s Park tube station. Rents start from £810 per month for 1 person living in a 1 bed flat. You can get a cheaper rent (£403 per month) if you share a 3 bedroom flat with 2 other property guardians. You will need to commit 16 hours per month to good causes.
🫰Sufra is recruiting a community chef (deadline to apply is January 10th 2025).
Events
📌 Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum is holding a public meeting on Saturday afternoon at the Lighthouse on Harlesden High Street, right opposite the Jubilee clock. Register here.
♀️16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign running from Monday 25th November to Monday 10th December, is led by the United Nations to raise awareness about gender-based violence. Brent council has organised 3 events. Click here to find out about them.
☪ Brent Council organises an in-person evening at the Civic Centre focused on spreading awareness and combating Islamophobia on Tuesday 26 November 2024. Sign up for free here.
🎼 Queen’s Park Singers are giving their winter concert in Harlesden on Sunday 1rst December at 6.30pm. Book your tickets here.
Community board
🐶 Dog of Paddington Old Cemetery (DOPOC) are asking the council to protect off-lead walking in the cemetery. Their petition has gathered more than 600 signatures so far. It runs until December 10th.
✉️ Please share your news (opportunities, community events etc.) with me using this form.