bookshy: Libraries

DigitalBack Books

DigitalBack Books and Brent Library Council have come together for an innovative partnership to make their growing collection of books available to Brent Library card holders. It's absolutely great that DigitalBack Books and Brent Council Libraries have come together to put as many books by African and Caribbean writers in the hands (or should I say e-readers) of their library card holders, and make it as accessible as possible for them. Plus if this encourages people to not only read more, but to read more books by African and Caribbean authors, then that's even better for building and fostering reading by writers whose works aren't always as visible in mainstream contexts.

Well, in their efforts to make writing from African and Caribbean writers more available to readers - throughout October, DigitalBack Books - an eBook platform offering "deliciously diverse writings from Africa and beyond" - have an exciting line-up of events to bring to introduce African and Caribbean writing to readers. The three events are taking place across different Brent libraries.

The first of the event took place last week (Tuesday 3 October) at Willesden Library - focusing on Crime Fiction, and was chaired by Henry Brefo (co-editor of Flight Journal, Writivism Strategic Advisor and former co-founder of Afrikult.). Henry was in conversation with Michelle Asantewa and Jacob Ross about their works and crime fiction.

Crime Fiction Reading at Willesden Library

The second event - taking place Tuesday 17 October at Harlesden Library, and moderated by me is all about Romance and Erotica Fiction. At the event will be Kiru Taye, who has written over 20 romance and erotica books, Nana Prah - author of contemporary, multi-cultural romance, and Ola Awonubi - an award-winning writer whose first foray into the romance genre was via Love's Persuasion - published by Ankara Press.

The end of the month - Tuesday 31 October - sees short story readings at the Library at Willesden Green. Chaired by Tricia Wombell (founder of Black Book Swap and Black Reading Group) it brings together short story writers such as Leone Ross, Rod Usher and Desiree Reynolds.

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I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but I haven't had a chance to. I found out a couple of months ago that the Kensal Rise library in London might be shutting down (a lot of public libraries in the U.K. seem to be shutting down) and it filled me with outrage. In fact, the idea of any library closing fills me with horror. Even though my blog focuses on African literature I've always found libraries to be really important so the second I heard about it I told myself I would write a post on it. Sadly, it's taken me a while to write on it.

http://www.projecteducateafrica.org/

Growing up there weren't that many libraries for me to use. I'm not saying Lagos did not (and does not) have public libraries but they weren't necessarily all that good - mainly educational texts, not that many children or young adult books, not the best building and site maintenance, and power outages to name a few. Things may have changed, I don't know as I haven't been to a library in Lagos in a very long time (if they have I would love to know).

It might seem strange why I am choosing to write a post on library closures in London - well, London is as much my home as Lagos is and UK government spending cuts are affecting public libraries. Kensal Rise library is one of them. This is a community library, and if nothing else a treasured historical building in the neighbourhood. I have been following the stories surrounding the Kensal Rise library and other local libraries in London for a while now because local libraries are a great resource for young and old alike, as well as students. I recently read an article Zadie Smith wrote about the closure of libraries in the UK and I honestly could not have said it any better than she did. The library is "an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay".

In my country, the government is trying to revamp the decaying public libraries and in the UK, the government is trying to shut them down as they obviously do not see libraries as an important necessity. It really cannot be that serious that they are shutting down libraries and I dread to think of a world where there are no libraries. Fair enough I grew up in that world, but having experienced a world where libraries (used to be) readily available, I know that they are an important, essential, and a necessary part of the public space. But it's not all doom and gloom, as in response to the closures, the community have set-up a pop-up library (pretty cool) and a campaign to Save Kensal Rise Library.

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