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| Electric House "community creative hub" |
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| Library study space sign |
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| Details: 7 May to 30 June |
"Willesden Green library @ Electric House"
The library they are demolishing was always full of young people studying at the tables upstairs. This appears to be an effort to replace that facility while it is being rebuilt. However, it is only available till the end of June.
As well as part of the Willesden library being at Grange Road in George Furness House (see our pictures here), another part of it will be in the Lewinson Centre, 165-167 High Road. This Brent Council web page has the opening hours but no details of what will be in each of the two locations. I certainly couldn't find poetry in George Furness House, (perhaps only a Betjeman could have?). It also warns that the study spaces in Electric House will only be available till 25 June, which is different to what it says on the sign there (30 June).
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| Sign on the wall of the Lewinson Centre |
5 comments:
Funnily enough I visited both George Furness House and the Levinson Centre on Friday in search of a computer with a printer that worked (the latter did, the former didn't); my search was slightly disrupted by a street brawl outside in which three young men laid into another with fists apenty, and some witnesses say they saw knives as well (though I didn't and none seem to have been used). Anyway, as temporary library spaces go, they did the job though I couldn't check how much stock was there nor how much reference material. It seems to me that the future for libraries in the next to decades, alongside traditional book lending which is in decline in almost all libraries, is the provision of quiet study space coupled with good IT, and support staff who can give assistance; plus the provision of places where small children can come into contact with real books, outside of school, and get to enjoy reading as a pleasurable activity. The quiet study space role isn't easily compatible with the small children role and I will be interested to see how the new library, when built, manages this incompatibility.
Oops, typos! Read ''aplenty' for 'apenty' and of course 'two decades' not 'to decades'.
Thanks for that. I think you're right about study space, now that you mention it. Libraries have always been places for quiet research and reading. Hence the old "Silence" signs. It was never all about lending. With life being such a welter of media and distractions, the study space must be more important than ever, especially for youngsters living in overcrowded homes.
I disagree with your comment that it was never about lending, but - as one who did his more successful homework in a public library - the study element is important and possibly much more so now that going for sixth form studies, and possibly university, is less the preserve of the middle classes.
Sorry, I meant it was never all about lending.
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