Save York Gardens

From the 26th September, York Gardens Library, will take a short break – closing temporarily for some alterations and redecoration. These changes are required to enable the library to remain open. It will reopen at the start of November.

When it reopens the ibrary will begin to officially operate as the ‘Big Society’ library. The Friends of York Gardens Library, a community group formed after the library was saved from closure, will take over a lot of the decision making and become accountable for the library making sufficient income to allow it to remain open with reduced funding.

When the library reopens in November, it will continue to be a great local children’s library and provide a few computers for community use. The homework club, after-school activities and baby-rhyme time will remain. We are also hoping to offer tutoring to GCSE students in maths and English. The community hall and upstairs rooms are available to be hired out by community groups: for parties, exhibitions, classes, meetings. For more information on room hire availability and charges you can contact the Library Service Development Manager Hilary Manning (who also works alongside the Friends group) on 020 8871 8848 or email yorkgardenslibrary@wandsworth.gov.uk

VOLUNTEERS STILL NEEDED

We are still recruiting volunteers to fill a number of different roles at the library. If you’re interested in gaining experience, learning some new skills and helping your local community, please contact Hilary Manning or email yorkgardenslibrary@wandsworth.gov.uk,

Since our last post, the Friends of York Gardens Library have been working on what happens next for the library and community centre. We are still working on answers to questions about the community hall, the final layout of the library and the activities that will be run. What we now know for sure if that we need to find plenty of volunteers to help us to keep York Gardens Library running for the community. Do you think you could help?

Volunteers are needed now and there are jobs that you can be helping with today. And we’ll need more as this project really starts to get going later in the year.

What kind of volunteers does the library need?

Anyone with an interest in getting involved, working as part of a team and learning some new skills would be a great volunteer for the library. These are the kinds of things we will need volunteers to do:

• Assisting customers to find what they need
• Running fun activities for children
• Promoting the library and finding new sources of invomce
• Teaching people how to use computers
• Helping children and adults with reading
• Staffing the reception desk and helping with hall hire

We’re looking for volunteers who can commit up to 4 hours per week, but there’s flexibility in when those hours are, depending on the specific role.

What will you get out of it? Well, as well as being part of a really important community project, volunteering at the library could help you to learn new skills that will be useful to you in other areas of your life and work. You’ll meet people from the local area and have the opportunity to work with a wide range of people. You’ll be trained to do the jobs that you’re asked to do as a volunteer and of course you’ll get practical hands on experience and personal development – all of which could help you if you’re trying to get into/back into other work.  No qualifications are required.

If you think you might be interested, please email yorkgardenslibrary@wandsworth.gov.uk Make sure that your email includes your name and contact details, when you’d be available to volunteer and what particular types of activities you’d be interested in helping with. We will post role descriptions of specific volunteering opportunities that are available soon.

Thanks!

Since November 2010, people who live near to York Gardens Library have come together: first, to appeal against Wandsworth Council’s proposals to close this really valuable community library and meeting space;  and now to keep the library going.

After several months of campaigning during the official consultation period, in March the Community had a major success when the Council voted to support an alternative way of saving money. The library is to become a ‘Big Society’ pilot project, meaning that a community group – the Friends of York Gardens Library – will take over much of the decision making and running of the library. There will be a reduced number of staff and the layout within the building will change considerably. This will mean that the library itself will be quite a lot smaller than it has been and the community hall will also be smaller (the exact size is still being debated). The Friends of York Gardens Library (“The Friends”) need to find volunteers to help to run the library and find other ways for the library to make an income to ensure that it can continue to survive in the long term.

It will be a major challenge to keep the library going. However, with the support of the local community we believe that it will be possible.

But now we need more support than ever before. The Friends are a group of committed local people, none of whom have experience of running a library. However, the group does have a wide variety of other skills and a lot of enthusiasm for the project.

The project is so new we’re not sure yet what sorts of volunteers we need, for how long, or to do what. But if you would be interested in getting involved at any point in the future or would just like to show your support please subscribe to this blog and send us an email to: yorkgardenslibrary@gmail.com

We’ll only contact you with information about volunteering and other opportunities about the library.

Going forward the blog will be maintained by The Friends. We will use this site to tell you about what The Friends are doing, what we have planned and how you can help.

Most importantly, please keep on using the library!

The council committee that runs Wandsworth’s libraries has voted to keep York Gardens Library open after an evening of deputations from local residents.

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The massive public outcry over the proposed closure of York Gardens Library has led to a new council paper that recommends the library is kept open.

York Gardens Library

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Nikesh Shukla and Emmy the Great at York Gardens Library

It was standing room only at the York Gardens Library Read-In event on Saturday February 5, with 200 residents enjoying authors, journalists, comedians and songwriters performing in defence of the Library. Read the rest of this entry »

Sandra Munoz-Alvarez, a local resident, has interviewed people who would be affected by the closure of York Gardens Library for this video. She explains: “This is a video I planned, shot and edited in just one week. As a resident of Kambala Estate and a Falconbrook School parent, it is crucial to keep this library open as its benefits cannot be amounted in money.”

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York Gardens Library consultation, Monday January 10

The final York Gardens consultations meeting took place in the library’s community hall on Monday, January 11. While senior council officers responsible for libraries attempted to explain the reasons for threatening York Gardens with closure, not a single Conservative councillor turned up. Read the rest of this entry »

Local councillor Wendy Speck discusses education policy with Ollie

Wandsworth council has released a report on how children use our libraries (Wandsworth Childrens Survey 2010). York Gardens Library comes top for many individual questions asked of children at libraries, proving it is a place where children go to learn to read, to do better at school an to improve their IT skills. Read the rest of this entry »