“IF I had a blog,” my colleague Nick Lavigueur wrote in an email a few days ago, “I might be discussing this.”
I can barely bother any more to tell Nick that this is a column not a blog and that there is a difference .
So instead of emailing back to clarify the finer points of the English language, I just clicked on the link he provided.
And up popped a story which is indeed worth mentioning in this column – or indeed in a blog.
The people of the wonderfully named town of Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire have withdrawn every single book from their library in a protest against plans to close it.
At one point last week the books were flying off the shelves at the rate of 378 per hour until every last one of the 16,000 titles was gone.
This may not make Milton Keynes Council reconsider its plan to close Stony Stratford Library – that £26m budget reduction isn’t going to cut itself.
But even if this was a forlorn effort, the people of the Buckinghamshire town should be saluted for their determination and inventiveness in attempting to save their library.
Withdrawing a lot of books is a very English form of protest and perhaps it will catch on in other parts of the country.
Like here for example. If I was the user of a village library in Kirklees – and to my discredit, I am not – I would be thinking of ways to save it.
Because next month’s budget announcement from Kirklees Council is unlikely to bring good news for libraries – particularly in towns between Huddersfield and Dewsbury which start with the letter “M”.
