an ode to Birmingham libraries: the buildings & books that helped raise me
as Birmingham City Council are set to shut 25 libraries and cut all arts funding, I take a moment to reflect on their importance
It is not an exaggeration to say that Birmingham libraries helped raise me. I moved to the city with my mum age four, our local library less than five minutes away.
I spent every Saturday trailing my fingers along the stacks and pulling out title after title. As I grew, I moved from section to section, picking out new reads and requesting others; as my siblings came along, I spent time with them in the playroom whilst my mum perused, swapping over with her halfway.
I did homework at the little tables, photocopying pages of huge books at 10p a piece, handing over carefully counted silver pieces and getting advice from the librarians on where to go next. They all knew me and treated me with all the time and patience in the world. Spending my time amongst shelves of knowledge settled me in a way my hyperactive brain so desperately craved.
Over fifteen years, I probably consumed hundreds of books, most not traditionally for my age bracket. I was hyperlexic and the books at school didn’t challenge me, but I could go and pick from huge numbers that would inspire or challenge me with their language or their content at the library. I took them out ten at a time, sometimes also taking spaces on my mum or siblings’ cards for the excess, consuming two or three the same weekend.
As a family, we didn’t have lots of money left for books - and certainly not at the rate I consumed them. I treated every one like a prized possession, turning pages carefully, because that is what books are to me, even now. I remember a few memorable incidents where something spilled on them or they were fragile and crumpled in my hands, leaving me feeling devastated and guilty.
They were also spaces for us to breathe. We lived in a busy household, often feeling hemmed in and unable to afford to just go out to a soft play centre or a coffee shop (and, reason unknown to us at the time, but these were not spaces we found easy nor accessible). Libraries were a sure and comforting beacon.
It wasn’t only the most local library that was part of my childhood. Our local closed for a few years whilst it had significant repairs done, and the next most local became our Saturday haven instead. It wasn’t as big - something I sulked over often - but the librarians once again treated me like I was someone important to them. There were several a couple of towns over that felt like a treat to go and visit, something different to break up monotony and get to pick up new shiny reads.
I spent every summer wrapped up in the summer reading challenges. As an undiagnosed autistic child, we didn’t understand why I found the holidays so dysregulating and difficult. The library anchored me, challenging me to read books, write reviews and participate in events. I’ve always been reward driven - getting to the highest level and winning medals was all I wanted. At age 12, I started writing reviews on the book blog I then had for several years.
Funding had already been viciously cut to Birmingham’s libraries whilst I was a teenager. They went from six days open, to four, to three, sometimes two. The kids from the school across the road stopped having a safe place to go everyday after the school shut, and residents without a computer unable to get access to one for job seeking and printing.
Birmingham is one of the biggest and youngest cities in the UK, with almost half of its population being under 30. More than 300,000 across the city are currently living in poverty.
Taking our libraries takes safe, warm spaces from the city, and will widen the education gap between working class young people and their peers, without lack of access to the same resources (books and computers alike, with digital poverty levels still significant).
These are places that can support and facilitate applications for benefits, job seeking; help people learn how to use phones and computers; inspire young people. These are not just places full of books and even if they were that would still be enough to need to save them.
Birmingham deserves so much better - it has spent the last two decades having service after service decimated - and its young residents grow up without pride in the city and without access to resources that would help them with their education, keep them out of dangerous spaces, let them be young people. More and more of us grow up desperate to leave.
If you’d like to help save our libraries, please sign this petition and shout on social media about how important libraries are.