From Hilary Mantel, CBE.
I write this to express my support for the campaign to save Bentham library. I have been in touch with users who have made me understand that the loss of this well-used and popular library would be deeply detrimental to the community it serves. I am aware that this is a time of financial stringency and that local authorities have to make hard choices. But closing public libraries, which offer a great deal for comparatively little outlay, is a bad bargain. It strikes hardest at those who have fewest resources. Libraries are an investment in the future of communities. They are used by all ages, by those with work and by the increasingly large number without. They are often the single institution that pulls towns and villages together. They are a channel for information and a source of delight.
The closure of any public library is deplorable, but Bentham is a particularly hard case. If closure goes ahead, the nearest public library would be in Settle. This library is very small. There is no direct public transport to Settle from Bentham. The nearest large library is at Skipton, 25 miles away. As I understand it, no replacement mobile service will cover Bentham or Ingleton. If you live in these towns, can afford to buy books and want to browse in a bookshop, you will have to go to Lancaster to do it. Lancaster is 16 miles from Bentham and public transport is infrequent and expensive. How can it be reasonable or justified to cast communities like this into a cultural desert? It is a hugely retrograde step and one that will rightly be resented for many years to come.
There are no internet cafes in this area. IT provision at Bentham is popular and staff provide support for new users. The proposed closure will remove internet access from those who don’t have it at home. The internet is not a trivial tool for conducting social life. It is a vital part of the modern world. Government, charities and voluntary bodies all use it to channel information to clients and citizens. Children with no internet access are not just disadvantaged compared to better-off classmates; they are deliberately being kicked backwards into another century.
I would like to urge the local authority to think of what they are squandering if the closures go ahead. Once you have closed libraries and dispersed the books, you won’t get them back. Volunteers, even if guided by professionals, cannot run a professional service, nor should they attempt it unless they are assured of long-term funding for stock replacement, future acquisitions, IT support and updates and the maintenance of buildings. If that can happen, why not keep the service as it is? If that can’t happen, why suggest that volunteer action can be a substitute?
North Yorkshire is the largest county in England. Its huge geographical area will, if plans go ahead in their present form, be covered by 18 buildings and two mobiles, a reduction from the present forty-two libraries. This is more than ruthless; it is disastrous. I am not a local reader, but I am a reader; I am not a local writer, but I am a writer who would never have achieved any professional success if I had not had access to a free and properly resourced library service. Literacy is the foundation of all education. Children are not inspired to read without wide access to books, available when they are ready for them. To take away books, to take away the internet, is to stifle talent and initiative, and drive people, young and old, back on dwindling resources. It is to cut them off from the wider world, cut them off from fresh thinking and profound ideas. I implore the local authority to take stock of what will be lost, and think again: be open-minded, and give a lead in retaining for communities in North Yorkshire the resources that, in the first place, came from the public purse.
With good wishes,
Hilary Mantel
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