It’s 4pm on a Tuesday and the toddlers gathered in Swindon’s Old Town library are all pretending to be lobsters. Their small hands pincering the air, the children shriek with excitement as the page of a book is turned. A moment later, they are all flapping dolphins.
The weekly event of Rhyme Time is one that would pass by most residents of Swindon. But for the dozen or so parents who come every week with their children – some as young as three months – it is one of the simple yet essential services offered by their local library. And, as such, it is under threat.
With Swindon council under pressure to save £80m by 2020, proposals have been put forward to withdraw funding from 14 out of the 15 libraries in the area. With 60% of the library budget, around £1.5m, to be axed in the next four years, the council has suggested that all but the central library in the town centre be manned by volunteers.
A consultation on the plans is due to start on Wednesday but the council has warned that cuts must begin soon, with £300,000 of savings needed this year alone.
The plans have been the source of outrage within the local communities, who have argued that the move is both “damaging and shortsighted” with libraries functioning as far more than simply spaces to borrow books.
For the parents gathered in the children’s corner at Old Town library, the potential for closure – or even limited hours – would be a devastating blow.
Derek Howlett, 41, who is there with his 22-month-old daughter Isis, says he and his two children borrowed about 300 books last year from the library.
“Going to the library fills the afternoon in a far more positive way than just sitting in front of the television. You can’t possibly measure the impact, further down the line, that libraries have in helping children so well at school. This is my children’s future we are talking about.”
Marybeth Masters, 26, the volunteer running the Rhyme Time group, says that while she gives up as much time as she can to the library, she also has a full-time job as a nurse.
“ I know friends who have kids who can’t afford to put them into nurseries, so spaces like this mean children can interact with each other and it introduces them to books and literacy,” she said.
Claire Ruiz, 39, breaks off from a rendition of Humpty Dumpty with her 18-month-old daughter, Anna, to add: “Libraries are clearly an essential service and I cannot quite fathom how anyone could think they should be shut. We are supposedly a forward-thinking country, but shutting the libraries would set back an entire generation.”
A similar situation unfolds in North Swindon library where, clutching three children’s books under her arm, Sian Philo, 29, says it would be a real shame if she no longer had a local library to bring her 10-month-old son, Ethan.
“Of course libraries still play a big role in getting children to read. They run all sorts of great schemes like the Bookstart club, which encourages children to get into reading before school. It seems all a big waste of time if you are going to shut all the libraries.”
But the 15 libraries of Swindon and its surrounding areas play a vital role not just for babies and children but also for the retired and elderly, who use them as an essential social space. At Highworth library, Elaine Salmon, 61, says local libraries stop people from becoming isolated and alone in their own homes. “It’s all well and good saying they can be run by volunteers, but most people don’t have the time. So many retired grandparents I know now help look after their grandkids.”
Mary Buck, a 90-year-old living just a few minutes from Highworth library, describes her library trips as “my treat of the day”. She shakes her head sadly at the prospect that the Central Library, an hour’s bus ride away, might be the only service left open.
With a tote bag filled to the brim with fiction picked from the library shelves, Buck says of Highworth: “It’s not far so I can walk in and I love it. They just can’t shut it down.”
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