Officials strip Mark Twain's library at Kensal Rise like thieves in the night

They came in the middle of the night and took the last of the books from the shelves of the library at Kensal Rise, in the Labour-run council of Brent Borough. They stripped the last vestiges of the library being a place of books. It was an act of vandalism. They stole the books. They took away the furniture. They removed the plaque commemorating the opening of the library in 1900 by Mark Twain. There was nothing educational, noble or inspiring about these actions. They may have been inspired by the goal of achieving budgetary cuts in services, but their consequence was no different from other acts of corporate theft or vandalism. They ensured the destruction in Kensal Rise of a tradition of librarianship going back more than a hundred years.
Writers including Alan Bennett, Sir Michael Holroyd and Philip Pullman, as well as local residents, have campaigned against the closure of Kensal Rise public library. Michael Frayn, the novelist and playwright, said: 'So the library is now an unlibrary, in the way that people became unpersons in the darkest days of the Soviety Union. I hope they took the titles of the books off as well. Removing unbooks from an unlibrary - who could possible object?' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/29/kensal-rise-library-stripped-books)

Campaign to save public libraries - Brent, London

The public library at Kensal Rise in Brent, London, is a late Victorian brick building built in the style reminiscent of a country house or a vicarage of that period. It resonates not only with a certain nostalgia, but also with an energy and motivation characteristic of the work of the writer Mark Twain, who opened the library in 1900. Citizens  engaged in the struggle to retain Kensal Rise library continue to protest against the policies of Brent Borough Council.
   In the eighteen months since Brent council announced that six libraries in the borough would be closed, hostilities between protesters and officials have become more visible, entrenched around the issue of whether in a time of financial austerity local authorities should preserve access for citizens to sources of reading material. In short, the campaign has become one symbol of the struggle for citizens against ignorance. Local residents put forward a business plan which entails the community taking over the library and running it at no cost to local people - including taxpayers - as a local 'third sector' facility. Third sector is the widely used term used to refer to what are called 'not-for-profit' groups and organisations, normally outside the public, voluntary and private sectors.
   Brent library campaigners on one hand may be presented as marginal to the major responsibilities of local authorities for providing public services. On the other hand, they symbolise the empowerment of citizens motivated to campaign to save public services which people deem essential, even if council officials don't prioritise them.

Jones, S. (2012) 'Borrowed time for books as campaigners win another day for Mark Twain's library' The Guardian, 17 May


Campaign to save public libraries
Public services: campaign to save public libraries