"A young mother living on the Holme Wood estate regularly took her daughter to the library bus to borrow books as she couldn't afford to buy books other than the occasional book at Christmas or for a birthday present. Every week when she took her daughter with her to the launderette to wash clothes they would sit and wait for the machines to finish and together read through the library books. It was a tough life in those days but this young mother instilled in her daughter a love for books and lifelong learning through those times reading the books from the library bus."
Although this is my background and everyone is different it does give me an insight into why the library bus and the local libraries run by qualified librarians are so important.
They're important for families to learn together, for children who need a safe, warm, quiet space to study and for older people to get out and enjoy a visit to the library and a friendly conversation with someone and guidance on books available or how to use the computer etc.
It's because of this and other reasons that I will always fight to defend our libraries. I could get quite militant about it in fact and chain myself to a library to defend the rights of people to continue to have access to a library.
It's also enshrined in law that we should have access to a library service - see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/75
"It shall be the duty of every library authority to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof, ." s.7(1)
This is just a brief overview on the value of libraries and there's a lot more about it on http://libraryatoz.org/index.php/importance-libraries/.
Also please have a look at this link about what a difference the mobile library bus is making in Honduras
http://vimeo.com/user24687014/httpvimeocommobilelibrary
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