The Guardian – Greta Bellamacina
“The 6 February is National Libraries Day, instigated in 2012 by campaigners hoping to avoid further library closures, and to celebrate these temples of learning across the country. Growing up, libraries played a huge part in helping me to establish myself as a poet. I discovered works by Anne Sexton and TS Eliot in a public library. I spent hours unpicking their lines and making my own interpretations. The library was a truly reflective space for me, away from school and away from home, where I began to form my own voice as a poet. There was the sense of excitement when finding something new on the same shelf a week later and taking it home at no expense. I absorbed a canon of books I could never have afforded to buy. There was a staggering £50m cut from library budgets across Britain in 2014-15 and 106 libraries closed in the same year, according to the latest Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy annual survey of libraries in Great Britain.”(more)