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http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/04/protests-save-our-libraries-day
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> Protests across the UK expected for Save Our Libraries Day
>
> Some 80 events nationwide scheduled in co-ordinated day of action against 
> library closures
>
> Click here for an interactive map of all the scheduled events 
> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/interactive/2011/feb/01/library-protests-map" 
> title="]
>
> >
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/04/protests-save-our-libraries-day
>
>
> Author Philip Pullman has described the spontaneous surge of popular 
> support for libraries threatened with closure by local authority cuts ? 
> which will see Save Our Libraries Day 
> [http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/public-libraries/pages/savelibrariesday.aspx" 
> title="] protests taking place up and down the UK tomorrow, Saturday 5 
> February ? as "one of the first great shots across the bows of the cuts 
> battleship".
>
> Pullman, author of the celebrated Northern Lights trilogy, compared the 
> activism over the threatened library closures to the student protests over 
> tuition fees, saying: "I hope it'll bring to the attention of even the 
> thickest-headed local council member that there is a great deal more 
> passionate feeling about libraries than they bargained for."
>
> At least 80 events will take place tomorrow, with a roster of notable 
> authors coming out against the cuts, which now threaten more than 400 
> libraries across the UK: among them, Kate Mosse on the Isle of Wight 
> protest, GP Taylor at Easingwold in North Yorkshire, Philip Pullman and 
> Mark Haddon at read-ins in Oxfordshire, and Julia Donaldson  lobbying the 
> Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.
>
> Famous names from entertainment are also taking part. Comedian Phill 
> Jupitus will work as a librarian for a morning 
> [http://plymouthbb.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/phill-jupitus-supports-plymouth-libraries/" 
> title="] at Plymouth's St Aubyn library to mark his support for Save Our 
> Libraries day.
>
> Manwhile actor Ralph Ineson ? who plays Amycus Carrow in the Harry Potter 
> films ? will do a reading at Norbury Library in south-west London, with 
> everyone invited to come along dressed as a character from the JK Rowling 
> books.
>
> Campaigners are looking for creative ways to make their point. In Milborne 
> Port in Somerset 
> [http://falseeconomy.org.uk/cuts/item/milborne-port-library" title="], a 
> hooded "book snatcher" will descend on the library, stealing books from 
> children and the elderly inside, and leaving them instead with signs that 
> say "illiteracy", "poor life chances", and "social isolation".
>
> At Sheffield central library 
> [http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107352279338822" title="] there 
> will be a "mass Shhh-in", with supporters encouraged to make the 
> traditional librarians' reproof, followed by a rousing three cheers for 
> the library. Campaigners at Sydenham library in Lewisham 
> [http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/?p=1026" title="] will 
> release 26 balloons, each one bearing a letter of the alphabet, as a 
> symbol of library's role in supporting literacy. In Gloucestershire, a 
> band of "flying authors" 
> [http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/the-fabulous-flying-authors/" 
> title="">In Gloucestershire, a band of "flying authors] will spend the day 
> racing between every one of the county's 43 libraries.
>
> Readings, petitions and campaign speeches are the staple, with many using 
> music and fun activities for children, promising a celebratory atmosphere 
> to focus on how popular local libraries are within their communities.
>
> Social media have been key to the rapid spread of the co-ordinated 
> protest, with Twitter and Facebook campaigns proliferating from 
> organisations such as Voices for the Library 
> [http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/" title="], The Chartered 
> Institute of Library and Information Professionals 
> [http://www.cilip.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx" title="] and book industry 
> magazine the Bookseller 
> [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fight-For-Libraries-campaign-from-The-Bookseller/134767896588119?ref=ts]. 
> And the campaign has travelled overseas, with the Twitter hashtag 
> #savelibraries [http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23savelibraries" title="] ? 
> initiated on a whim two weeks ago by a Shropshire lecturer and 
> bibliophile, @mardixon [http://twitter.com/#!/MarDixon" title="] ? now 
> adopted by library supporter groups in the US, New Zealand, Australia, 
> Canada, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
>
> Feelings are running high, with Philip Pullman's impassioned speech in 
> defence of the public library service, originally made at an Oxfordshire 
> campaign meeting and later posted online, picking up tens of thousands of 
> readers and a huge response.
>
> The author said he is still receiving responses to his speech. "I had an 
> email yesterday from a woman brought up in Blackbird Leys [a low-income 
> Oxford suburb where the local library is one of those threatened with 
> closure] saying that the library had been the sole place where she could 
> find release and escape. A child in the same position, from next year on, 
> would find him or herself with nothing at all."
>
> Pullman added that his own experience as a schoolteacher taught him that 
> claims libraries are a narrow, middle-class issue are simply not true. "I 
> defy anyone to tell me, looking at a class of children, which will love 
> libraries and which won't," he said. "Sometimes it's the child of a single 
> mother living on benefits; sometimes it's the child with plasma screen TVs 
> and three holidays a year, but no books in their home. In every class in 
> every school there are children whose lives will be changed by a library. 
> Taking that away from them is not fulfilling your proper duty as a local 
> authority."
>
> Councils hard-pressed by government budget cuts say the harsh reality is 
> that difficult choices must be made, with other vital services including 
> those for the elderly and disabled also crying out for funds.
>
> Keith Mitchell, the council leader in Oxfordshire, where Philip Pullman 
> lives, has queried whether local authors have "thought through the impact 
> of their messianic message about literature on the most vulnerable in our 
> society". Oxfordshire proposes to stop funding 20 of its 43 libraries.
>
> But author Alan Gibbons, who runs the Campaign for the Book 
> [http://alangibbons.net/?p=91" title="], pointed out that there are more 
> than 20 local authorities, including Cornwall, Devon, Lincolnshire and 
> Norfolk, where no library closures at all are planned and queried why 
> others felt it necessary to axe half their service. "Culture minister Ed 
> Vaizey should call a halt to all closures under the 1964 Libraries Act and 
> demand that the councils that are unable to manage their services properly 
> should be made to listen to those that appear to be protecting them 
> better," Gibbons said.
>
> ? An interactive map of all the Save Our Libraries Day protests can be 
> seen here 
> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/interactive/2011/feb/01/library-protests-map" 
> title="]
>
>
> >