Rawdon Community Library

General information

This area is to celebrate and promote the wider use of Rawdon library. It is a wonderful library set within the beautiful Micklefield Park in Rawdon, Leeds.

The library may now face closure. Friends of Rawdon Library feel that the recent consultation process by the City Council was misleading, and should also have involved the whole community. The library is a community resource. It is regularly used by the nearby school and is particularly popular with children. Family visits to the library and the park are a local treat.

If the closure goes ahead, it will leave Rawdon and the Aireborough region without this key facility.

•Very shocked that the community could have its library provision and probably its library building taken from it. Rawdon has virtually no public buildings. If the library is closed and the buildings sold restoration would be impossible.
•The Friends of Rawdon Library group was formed to defend the library and lobby for its development. We believe that libraries are an essential part of any community. We know that libraries are presently evolving, but want evolution not closure.

CONSULTATION PROCESS
•Unsatisfactory - the questionnaire made no effort to find ways of keeping the library open and make fuller use of its facilities The council should make sure the whole community understands the issues and can ask questions and make suggestions for developments and cost savings. A public meeting should have been held on a matter so vital to the whole community. The educational provision for our children is a matter for all of us.

SIZE
•The building was purpose built in 1962 and was the headquarters for Aireborough Libraries.
It houses the unique aireborough local history section and is also a quiet work area. It has a number of rooms which could be used for community activities. Parking and access are good – car parking in Yeadon and Guiseley is limited and in any case why encourage car usage.
•Book issues from Rawdon were almost at 25,000 were almost twice as great as the nearest library under threat which is Methley and that is to stay open.

CHILDREN
•We believe that in closing the library, the council would be failing in its duty to children.
•In the last five years borrowing of fiction by children has actually increased. 137 children belong only to Rawdon library.
•The library is within the Rawdon Park area and a combined visit to library and park is popular with families.
•Littlemoor School whose children are taken to the library, in particular the special needs group go weekly when possible, were not consulted about the closure of the library.
•Wirral Council was judged in breach of its statutory duties because it was not able to demonstrate that it had due regard to the requirements of children.

PROMOTION
•We believe that the council has failed to fulfil its duty of promoting the library service and encouraging people to use it.
•Requests by library staff to have a sign on the A65 indicating the location of the library have been disregarded for years.

INFORMATION
•Librarians are now often called information workers and that reminds us of the purpose of libraries to entertain and to educate.
•The library has great potential as a place for meetings, lectures, developing computer literacy as well as supplying books and other media.
•It already has a monthly book group.l
•Alan Bennett has said withdrawal of library services a form of child abuse.

MOBILE LIBRARIES
•Attending a library is a very different experience from going to a mobile library. Where these are the only option as in some rural areas, they have to be used but they should not be the only option open to Leeds.

VOLUNTEERS
•In our campaign to save the library, the Friends of Rawdon library respected the fact that people were employed there, and did not emphasise our willingness to contribute, or if necessary, fully staff the library. We know that we have the resources within our community to do that and would like the Council:
•either to give the library a year in which it could prove its worth with volunteer support
•or to allow volunteers, including at least one fully qualified, graduate librarian and other experienced library workers to organise and run the library in conjunction with the City Libraries.

On May 12th 2011, a quiet protest took place outside the library. The FORL launched a petition to save the library. Over 80 signatures were collected to support the request that Leeds City Council:

keep open the Library and explore ways to develop and promote its services.

The petition is now available in local shops and, by March 30 had attracted nearly 500 signatures.