Botley Library Read-In is a huge success!

Yesterday’s Read-In was a huge success, attracting both local and national media coverage!

Thank you to everyone who attended and who gave their support!

A full report with photographs will be posted shortly, but in the meantime, you can read about the Read-In  in the Guardian here, (scroll down to read reporter Hannah Freeman's comments at 11.28am and 11.43am (Hannah also posts a lovely picture of our Fountain of Knowledge!),
and in the Sunday Telegraph here.

There's a great report by Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer too.

Philip Pullman, who spoke publicly against the cuts last month, attended a reading at the threatened Botley Library, close to his home in the Oxfordshire village of Cumnor. The small building is not the kind of library usually associated with the university town. There are no dreaming spires here. Inside at 2.30pm yesterday , six users, of ages ranging from 11 to 68, were busy taking out books or using the computer terminals. A 56-year-old academic from Cumnor said she was "outraged… It is a mixed community here, as it should be. Much more real town than gown. This library is for people who don't have books at home. It is a matter of social justice."

The success of yesterday's Save our Libraries Day, and the great local and national publicity it received, will I hope, not go unnoticed by Oxfordshire County Councillors and Oxford West MP Nicola Blackwood.

There is no public support for Oxfordshire County Council's proposals to withdraw funding for 20 libraries in the county and we hope that after yesterday's great show of support for the libraries campaign, they will reconsider their position.