Claire Stewart: Show Libraries the Love

This is a call to action - whatever you're doing this weekend, make some time on Saturday: your local library needs your love. It's National Libraries Day tomorrow - a culmination of a year of campaigning to save libraries from cutbacks and closures, as well as a call to everyone who values their library to come back to the fold. There are a raft of fantastic, interesting and fun events taking place at libraries all over the UK, some of which are on this National Libraries Day events map. (See also, this blog for a selection of highlights). 

I have always been a library lover, as a child I loved visiting my local library at weekends and borrowing piles of books. I took part in summer reading challenges and in the end the stickers I got on my wee collector card were the secondary achievement - the real triumph was discovering loads of new authors and books that I would normally have passed by, like this one. I used to borrow music cassettes from their somewhat eccentric selection and eventually the librarians let me have an adult ticket so that I could borrow books from the adult sections and borrow a larger number of books.

This was before libraries had computers, games and online catalogues, the fun came from browsing the shelves and seeing what I happened across. 

When I got home with my haul, I would settle down with some ready-salted potato sticks and a glass of milk (the ultimate reading snack) and get stuck in to some serious reading. 

To be honest, I can't imagine what my life would have been like if the library just hadn't been there, but I do know that I couldn't possibly have had the range of books available without it. The number of books I bought between the ages of 8 and 13, (let's call them the bookworm years) were usually from book vouchers I got as presents and amounted to probably around 10. I can't even guess how many books I read in that time thanks to libraries. 

Whether you've only ever been an occasional borrower or you've made a lot of use of your local library, if you think that libraries are important and should be  kept open, you owe it to your community and future generations to take action this weekend!

What better way to show local and national government that libraries are still vital and appreciated in communities than to pack them out this Saturday? 

There will be lots of fun things happening in libraries, so you can join in, or just browse the shelves for interesting reading material. While you are there, take pictures, tweet using the #nld12 tag, post on the official facebook page and generally make a big noise on the internet about the fact that you are there and you love your library! 

Oh, and one more thing - when you get home and you're settling down with that newly-borrowed item, make sure you've got some ready-salted potato sticks and a glass of milk.