Increasingly, this is an age of revolution. Disaffection has even reached England’s green and apathetic land. Libraries are to close and campaign groups have formed online around books blogs and community forums. Slogans are shouted, ministers harangued and the Culture Select Committee petitioned – all to no immediate avail. The dissenters are not above direct action, albeit confined to the sleepily donnish variety of protest. A wave of sit-ins, or read-ins as they are termed, was coordinated last Saturday and I went to watch the tenor of these demonstrations.
First impressions of New Cross Library are thwarted by the pervasive must. The air is coarse: dehydrated by the aggressive central heating, straining with a pained hum. But, all libraries are sacred and New Cross’ determined drabness is warming.
Some of the protesters face losing their jobs. Many others were regular users – a diverse local community who used the library’s various technical facilities and relied on it as the source of trashy fiction and classics alike.
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