Resources
We have put together some guides and briefs about why we need and love libraries. Please use and share widely.
This briefing written in June 2024 explains:
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Why libraries are a statutory service: local councils are required to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service by law.
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Why Birmingham needs libraries: libraries support lifelong learning, adult and child literacy, digital inclusion, and more.
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Continuing use of Birmingham libraries despite ongoing cuts
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Urgent questions for Birmingham City Council as they continue to carry out cuts to our library service in the face of public outcry.
This briefing discusses the critical role libraries play in fostering children's cognitive and language development, literacy, love of reading, and educational attainment. It was written in September 2024 in response to Council proposals to limit opening days at many libraries to two days a week The Council adjusted their proposals, so libraries will open a minimum of three days a week, which is still less than half the week!
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"When libraries close or opening hours are reduced, it restricts children’s opportunities to build their ability to read fluently and with confidence, which in turn affects educational attainment, career outcomes, and even health and life expectancy.
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Our city’s children need libraries more than ever. A government that wants to improve educational attainment and tear down barriers to opportunity needs to invest in
libraries, not close them."
This slide deck provides analysis of access to library services in the city and when and how the people of Birmingham need and use libraries.
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It emphasises in particular the importance of Saturday and evening opening hours for school-age children and young people and people who work during the week. The plans to cut the hours of our community libraries service by over a third will not only reduce access throughout the week, but mean more libraries lose critical Saturday opening hours.
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The slides were produced in December 2024.
In this briefing we prepared in January 2025, we summarised our concerns and questions about Birmingham City Council's proposals for libraries as presented in the final phase of consultation. We provided a summary of and commentary on:
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Birmingham City Council's proposal for our community libraries as described in the final phases of consultation (revised Option 4);
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the finances;
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the evidence presented;
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the consultation process;
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and the way forward.
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This document was prepared for a council committee called the "Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee" in January 2025, which is supposed to discuss the council’s proposals for libraries and hold cabinet members and officers to account. It was emailed out to them as detailed in our blog post here.
Birmingham City Council's public consultation is finished now and Cabinet has decided to go ahead with their plans to cut the library budget by about 40%. During the consultation we wrote a series of guides which we post here as an archive of the public campaign against the cuts and in aid of anyone organising to keep their libraries open and professionally staffed. These guides outline the council's proposals and our analysis of the proposals; they outline the consultation surveys and suggest ways of voicing concern regarding the council's plans.
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Guide to Phase 2 of the consultation (September 2024):
The recommended option from the council preserved only one full-time library per constituency: only 9 “community library hubs” plus the Library of Birmingham. All other libraries were to be open only 2 days a week, with 7 others stripped of council funding and dependent on community groups and 1 more closed permanently.
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Guide to Phase 3 of the consultation (October - November 2024):
In a revision of their preferred option, the Council redistributed one day from each of the ‘hub’ libraries (which will now be open 4 days a week) to ten of the ‘part-time’ libraries (which will be open 3 days a week) and designated another library as a ‘hub’ for Ladywood Constituency (Small Heath). We think this redistribution was the result of hard campaigning by people all over the city and the way library lovers stood together to complain about the stark disparity the original proposal would have created. However, we remain profoundly concerned about the impact of a 40% cut on our library service.
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We didn't write a guide to the council's last phase of consultation (November - December 2024) which was when they admitted they had messed up the library rankings in the previous rounds but only for Option 3 which was not their recommended option...for the record, BCC's page about that survey is here.
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Representatives of Birmingham Loves Libraries met with Council Leader John Cotton and Cabinet Member for Digital, Culture, Heritage and Tourism Saima Suleman on June 18 2024 to advocate for the preservation of all of our libraries.
In the meeting, we said:
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The cuts to our library service - an established lifelong education pathway - will be costly in the long run. Properly staffed libraries are essential in a city where 46% of children grow up in poverty.
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The consultation process is not fit for purpose.
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We demand a thorough investigation of the issuance of Birmingham’s Section 114 notice and a pause of all cuts.
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Our concerns are outlined in this briefing we gave the two cabinet members as well as an open letter to all councillors and the commissioners published on our blog and shared with the media.
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