Fire and rain in our action-packed libraries

12:56pm Friday 4th July 2008

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St James Street open-air library could be the most popular spot in Walthamstow for readers this Saturday. The nearest official library, at Walthamstow Central, has been closed since a fire last week. And if you’re going to say that saves the council taking books to the incinerator again -- don’t be so cynical!

The open-air library is on from 2pm every first Saturday of the month, outside the closed library, near the High Street end of Coppermill Lane. And it’s a livelier place to be anyway, even in the rain. There’s usually some musicians, kids drawing pictures to decorate the windows, and an ever-changing choice of reading material at the book-swap stalls.

Though it only exists once a month, run by a bunch of library-loving campaigners, the open-air alternative offers a pretty good choice of books. And if you’ve been into any of the borough’s shabbily madeover libraries, you’ll have noticed the one thing they’ve done effectively is get rid of most of the books. Oh, and most of the staff too: Walthamstow Central’s reference section was closed half the times I’ve tried to visit, because there was no one to attend it.

So what’s the story behind the Walthamstow Central fire, then? One person commented on the Guardian’s website that the walls were so damp you wouldn’t think a few could take hold. See http://tinyurl.com/6zkm5r. Others think the damp that’s been staining its walls since its £3.5 million makeover last year has seeped into the electrics.

Walthamstow’s massive central hall used to be impressively lined with polished wooden shelving and absolutely stuffed with books – well over 20,000 at the lowest calculation. Now the beautiful shelving has all been stripped out. (Whose homes is it adorning now? How much did someone get for it?) And a feeble selection of chick-lit and thrillers are spread out on portable bookcases that would hold 6,000 books if they were full.

Instead of books, the now bare walls are decorated with an ever-spreading damp stain – or were, before its latest lining of soot. The damp is presumably from the roof, which has been leaking ever since the expensive makeover. But hey, who knows what other damage has been done? And has anyone checked whether any resulting mould is affecting people’s asthma?

If you prefer a library with books in it, check out St James Street open-air library. It’s on the first Saturday of every month, starting 2pm.

It’s where people go if they actually like books. Unlike the council’s head of libraries who waltzed into a meeting at Hale End library – victim of another bookstripping makeover – and warbled “It all looks so clean and fresh!”.

As a neatly dressed woman in the audience wailed “But I don’t want it to look like my sitting room! I want it to look like a library!”

And at St James Street open-air library, at least you’re breathing fresh air rather than mould spores.