Top Ten Small Inner London Libraries

The UK’s national media have over the past few weeks been reporting on decline of the UK’s libraries. While UK libraries crumble around us statistics globally illustrate flourishing library systems in particular in the US and the rest of Europe. In the first of his fortnightly reports on libraries still open for business Paul Little will visit as many libraries as possible within the M25 reporting on the current state of these libraries, he starts with a compilation of the Top Ten Small Inner London Libraries

Do we come with presumptions when we think about small libraries? I certainly came with a few when I began this list; presumptions that as I visited more small libraries were challenged and some completely overturned. This list is a top ten but they are in no order of preference which the adjective ‘top’ implies. In fact it might seem the list begins somewhat negatively, but this is one of the things I realised quite early on: you may have expectations, but sometimes these expectations are not the things that will be fulfilled. And to judge a library, small or otherwise, on this perceived failure, is to err.

1. Little Venice Sports Centre library (Westminster borough)

I’ll start with Little Venice Sports Centre Library because when walking out of the sports centre after visiting the library, turning into the calmness of St Mary’s Church Yard, a question forms: what are the basic attributes a small twenty-first library should have? My answer is three things: books, space to work and at least one computer. This library has all three but it pushes the definition of a library somewhat.

It certainly is small; it shares the reception area with the leisure centre. There are computers along the side of the wall and there are tables and chairs. However, I’m unsure if these tables and chairs are for the users of the library or leisure centre or both.
Then there are the books.
The books are an assortment, in no discernible order, over two bookcases with five shelves each. We have a Sarah Waters here and Jo Nesbo there and at the bottom shelves of each book case a bunch of children’s books. In a nod to the surroundings there are trophies of assorted ilk on top of the bookcase. If there wasn’t a sign stating Library above the trophies – trying to convince me or itself I’m not sure – anyone walking in wouldn’t think you could use it as a library, and maybe take a book out. Which leads me on to my last point – I don’t think you can.

The library is completely self-service. Unfortunately the self-service machine is not working. I check the library’s website. There is a note stating the machine and computers are out of order. This obviously is a slight hindrance to anyone, who recognising the shelves as a library, did want to take a book out. And I notice on the website, below the note, with no irony intended, the claim that this library has the longest opening hours of any library in the borough of Westminster. This is all very fine, but not if you want to take a book out or use a computer.
Not to criticise Westminster for what might be a temporary lapse. (Indeed the computers seemed to be working though I didn’t try them). And another small library they run – Waterloo Library (see no.5) – is good. However, if this is a library, the other parts that make it up have to be a good standard to make up for the parts that sometimes (understandably) might go wrong. It is not that I think this type of shared space won’t work, even if it is not ideal and is forced by necessity. Next on the list The Claude Ramsey library in the South-East has a very similar set-up and has garnered nominations.

2. Claude Ramsey Library (Greenwich borough)

At the end of the line for a few bus routes is Thamesmeare Leisure Centre in Thamesmead. Within this leisure centre is the small Claude Ramsey Library. It shares its space once again with the leisure centre’s reception but walking in to this library tit feels like it has its own space, but it’s not hidden away. This is in no small part down to, I find out, the library’s designers who set out to create a design that enticed and invited people into the library space.
It does feel new. There is in place of the usual grey racking white book stands. There are the self-service machines operational. There is space afforded to work or read away from the children’s section. However, the table and two chairs set-up would mean you would have to be on pretty friendly terms with whoever sat next to you. The selection of books is not vast and there is the usual concentration on crime and thriller (which is to be expected). What is a slight annoyance for me is there is no indication of what section you are looking at on the new racking. This did have the positive affect though of making me ask the librarian for the location of a book I was looking for. He kindly got up and got it for me.

This is a library that is not going to be appeal to the student or the person coming to browse. But I can see why it was shortlisted for the Bookseller Industry Award for Library of the Year. It felt like a small library with a purpose. That’s sometimes a good thing even if that purpose is not yours.

3. Kensal Library (Kensington and Chelsea borough)

For all their strengths and their weakness in their smallness the last two libraries have a lot of scope for being pretty impersonal and not having a community. Not unfriendly, but it misses what could be called that ambiguous of words ‘character’. Kensal library has character whilst sharing the same preoccupations as a library like Claude Ramsey.

The librarian and library rather than being a place to take out books and maybe study feels like a place where people have access to information they might not be able to find elsewhere. Indeed I feel confirmation in this as I browse the well stocked fiction section and see that not much has been taken out recently. Yes, you can still check as the stamps if not taken out by the automatic machines which this library doesn’t have and none seem to have been for a while. I use the word feels because it is in this library I get a sense of only visiting a library without a purpose. In a bigger library you can sit down but apart from the two chairs facing the librarian desk there is nowhere to get taken in by the library. I became aware of what I am: someone picking up and putting down books after leafing through and looking at the issue page. This is not a problem but it has widened my view as to what a library offers might be what not I personally look for.

4. Charlton Library (Greenwich borough)

Charlton Library, by my rough estimation, is the same size as Kensal Library. There is the same division of the library in two rooms. To the right, as you enter, is the children’s section and the other room houses the fiction and other categories. However, before you can find this out you have to get in to Charlton library. I have found it difficult on the few occasions I have visited. The actual library is housed within Charlton House. It’s not like the library is not sign posted. It is, but as I follow these around the side of Charlton House I always end up outside the same fire exit, scratching like a tom cat to get in. Each time a librarian has to let me in with my weak greeting of are you open? They are.

Inside is very different to the small libraries that I’ve described so far. Charlton House was built during the reign of James I and it is, I’m reliably informed, the finest and best preserved Jacobean Mansion in London. The library is oak panelled and it gives the two rooms what I imagine to be a drawing room atmosphere. Space is limited but the library is snug enough that you can sit down on the couple of small tables and not feel too awkward with the proximity of the librarians. This snugness is exacerbated by the weather pouring down with rain outside. This combined with makes it a real nice library to visit and spend an hour or two either reading or working if it is not too busy.

5. Waterloo Library (Lambeth borough)

This library is my bench mark I feel as to how large a small library can be before I consider it medium sized. It is a very decent and well lit library. As you walk in on the right there are what appear to be new computers. A point on computers: no matter what library you are in there is always a demand for computers and you can be pretty sure that someone will be on them. Walking around the library there are really good displays and the racking is new. But once again, if I could venture to point out that might make you roll your eyes: this library has decent racking, but again libraries frequently don’t label what the racking contains. Any reasons for this are beyond me but this is not true of all of them but most. It does make it hard to browse. However, I do find a spot and idle away half hour before me and the other occupants are asked to leave so they can close.

6. Woodberry Down Library (Hackney borough)

I became a big fan of Woodberry Down Library quite quickly. Not just because of the helpful librarian but that books, these physical objects, are presences in this library. They are in abundance and bursting out of the seams but not in a negative way. They are on the floor waiting to be shelved as well as on the shelves, which you will issue a sigh of relief, are labelled. You want new stock, well, even after being in there two minutes I found them thanks to the labelling.

The library is to be found in Redmond Community Centre which was opened in 2012. To get to the centre you walk down Woodberry Down and right onto Kyani Avenue, all the time quite aware of the demolishing work of the old flats that once made up Woodberry Down estate. The entrance to the centre leads into what I think is a café, bright and spacious. I ask where the library is and I’m directed round the corner, passing an upright piano with some books atop it, and past an exhibition by Sonelle Goddard, which later, on a recommendation of the librarian, I take a look at.

The library room consists of four high racks that run parallel to the room. A high glass window on one side gives a very bright aspect to everything even without the lights on. Opposite end to the entrance are the librarian’s desk and two computers. In conversation with the librarian, who volunteers, like everyone in else who works here, I ask if it gets busy. I’m told when the kids come in it does but otherwise they are just trying to get the word out they are here. It’s then when I use the word surviving that her reaction (which is of surprise that I think libraries are just surviving) I realise how my mind has been set to assume that every library I’ve visited, small or otherwise, is ‘just surviving’. It may be that the people, who volunteer, use the library even, don’t see it completely this way. Theirs is a constant thing to let people know people they are there. And by mentioning Woodberry Down I’m happy to try to help with that.

7. Coldharbour Library (Greenwich borough)

Coldharbour Library is the smallest in what is a triptych of libraries completed by the medium sized New Eltham Library and the larger Eltham library. It is on William Barefoot road and this walk up provides some respite from the traffic and noise of the Fiveways junction in New Eltham. A plaque on the wall in the foyer informs that not for the first time I’ve stood where royalty has stood. The plaque was unveiled on the ninth day of May 1957 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to mark the completion of Coldharbour Housing Estate, Eltham.

Further investigation of the foyer turns up the community notice board and the leaflets advertising local events; these are all things I’ve found of a library that it is easy to pay no attention to and walk on by straight into the library. The library itself is one room, half of which is a children’s section. The children’s section has three of the library’s six computers. In the adult section there is a desk to sit and read which looks through a large window onto the quiet street outside. The desk is big enough so when I do sit myself down I don’t disturb the woman studying, her baby asleep in the pram next to her. There is nothing flashy about this library. Nothing needs to be. The conversation noise which is a most accepted part of any public library I have been to is not loud for me. It never is to be honest. The space is small but once again I feel like everything manages to co-exist. I fact all the small libraries I’ve visited so far there hasn’t been a tension. However, it took my visit to the next library for someone to point out how the tension can and does exist on occasion.

8. John Barnes Temporary Library (Islington borough)

“Is it named after…” “Go on”. The librarian encourages me. I go for it: “John Barnes – the Watford and Liverpool winger?” It’s not, but I’m not the first person to assume this. In fact, the librarian informed me, John Barnes was a local councillor who sat on the correct committees. But what’s a fact? Let’s just say it is a library named after John Barnes, the Watford and Liverpool winger.

The library is temporary and it is in a building you might imagine a temporary library to be: a grey portacabin. The original site was 70 yards away but it was demolished along with the block of flats it was under. The library will be here in its current position in front of Pangbourne House around two years while they rebuild the original site and reinstall the library.

The library is well stocked and quite busy. There are children on the computers and the two round tables, littered with newspapers, just be the librarians desk, are occupied. I tell the librarian that the space, as a small library, seems good. He half agrees. You can do more in a bigger space he tells me. Sometimes the needs of the children to be, well, children, sometimes clashes with the needs of the people who sit at the tables. This is true. It does require some leeway between the two sets of people. It is not a great but I can see how the librarian might think that it could make it uncomfortable for some and in the long run stop people coming in.

9. Grove Vale Library (Southwark)

Grove Vale also labels it shelves and it is bursting at the seams. It has two separate sections once more – children and adult – separated by a doorway. This time there will be no tension I don’t think between the two. However, maybe because it is the end of the day and there’s a lot of bustling around but the adult section seems to be cramped. There is a cluster of computers on a desk but every seat is occupied around it even if they are not using a computer. I find a bit of space by sitting on a kick stall, normally reserved for people who want to reach the top shelves. I can’t stay for long though. I walk out after my legs start aching after fifteen minutes and as I walk past that doorway leading to the children’s section I cast a jealous glance at what appears to me like a calm, light and spacious room with a chair for everyone.

10. Two Small Red Phone boxes

On coming out of Great Portland Street Station it took me a bit of time to find the first one I was looking for. I had to stop once on one street and pretend to remember something that necessitated changing direction (who exactly do I think is watching me?). However, I finally found it, outside the International Students House, a red telephone box which is actually a replica. This one is part of the Little Free Library Project, which is a charity that promotes reading, art and community. I foolishly didn’t bring a book so I didn’t take a book. I would definitely take one for it next time, however, and my advice to you is bring your books fill it up. There’s a 1997 Best Pub guide that needs reading in there.

The next telephone box is actually an old BT telephone box bought for a pound by a Sebastian Handley in 2014 on behalf of the Brockley Society. This Lewisham Micro Library made various news reports when it opened and it is still up and running over a year later, though Handley has moved away and the library is now maintained by “two micro librarians”.

When you arrive at it, especially if you arrive at it walking up Loampit Hill away from Lewisham, it feels very much like a simple gesture of permanence in a part of South East London – due to the construction and reconfiguration of Lewisham by the Lewisham Gateway project – that is seeing a lot of change in a short amount of time. There is not stagnation in its sense of permanence though, for with the simple red box with seven shelves full up of books it is a place where you will find ideas. And I had my own idea walking back down the hill; it takes us back to Little Venice Sports Centre Library. Maybe the Westminster borough could remove the books from their shelves in that Sports Centre Library and do something similar. I’ll put some money towards the £1. That would catch the eye. It wouldn’t take much. And what’s more, like in all the libraries I’ve written about, they can have that idea for free.