Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Concern over our Library's future
SGRA (a residents association) will hold a meeting at 7pm tomorrow night (Thursday) at Stroud Green Library - which may well be the nearest library for many people in Harringay ward - and one of the issues we will be discussing is setting up or re-forming a 'Friends of Stroud Green Library' group as we are alarmed at the possible threat to this library of Budget cuts.
Everyone welcome - please come along and join us.
Tags for Forum Posts: libraries, public spending cuts, stroud green and harringay library
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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In last week's Hornsey Journal, a letter Libraries are soft targets for cuts from an anonymous Haringey library worker held that:
"... Library managers are telling staff that four libraries (Alexandra Park, Highgate, Muswell Hill and Stroud Green) are under threat of closure and that at least two will be closed and sold off in order to raise revenue.
Staff will be relocated to other libraries and vacancies will be left unfilled. We are also instructed not to tell the media or public until September ..."
This is obviously not official, but it is unless the letter is mischievous or someone at the council is 'flying a kite', it has some plausibility ...
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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raise revenue.
???? Who on earth is going to buy a public library? Google?
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The suggestion is still barely credible. In the last few years the council (to their credit) has spent doubtless a six figure sum on a major upgrade of SG library involving scaffolding over the entire building. It buggers belief that they would then flush all that recent spending down the pan. SGL is the oldest library in the Borough and in a conservation area.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Indeed it is the nearest library for Harringay Ward. It was conceived to serve the south eastern part of Hornsey borough and originally was to be called the Harringay & Stroud Green Library, but for an unknown reason opened as the Stroud Green Library.
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Hugh your earlier excellent photos show it to best advantage. Over the entrance it says simply, PUBLIC LIBRARY ...
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Thank you, Clive. It does. But I'm not sure that I fully understand your point.
Are you horrified at the thought, that Stroud Green Library was in fact conceived as Stroud Green and Harringay Library? For me it made absolute sense that Hornsey Council would develop a resource for the whole of the south eastern part of the borough, rather than just a bit of it.
Are you suggesting (perish the thought) that I might be i....i.....i.....in...in...in...incorrect!
It may well be that I'm misinformed, but my information comes from Sir Frank Chalton Francis writing in 1898...the most important figure in the history of the British Museum Department of Printed Books in the twentieth century. While he was one of the Keepers of the Department (1948–1959) he modernized many of the procedures which had remained virtually unchanged since the mid-nineteenth century. His greatest achievements were to devise a new method of producing very rapidly an updated version of the General Catalogue of Printed Books, and to initiate the process which led to the creation of the National Library of Science and Invention as part of the British Museum Library. During his time as Director of the Museum (1959–1968) there were many improvements to the buildings, and the British Museum Act of 1963 transformed the constitution of the Museum. He extended the opening hours of the reading rooms and began detailed planning of a new building for the library to the south of the Museum; this latter work was vitiated as a result of a volte-face by the Wilson Government in 1967.
Sounds like the sort of man liable to get his facts right, non?
I'm all for renaming the library to fulfil its current purpose. And not for the hell of it. The library is keen to drive up usage from the population this side of the tracks. Its current name, its brand, tells Harringaeites that it's not really for us. A rebrand would help people to identify with it and support its movement to the heart of the wider community from BOTH sides of the tracks, rather than being at the edge of both.
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PUBLIC LIBRARY I was merely suggesting that the title over the entrance reminds all that our library is a general purpose library open to everyone. What the council often forgets is that it is the nearest official council facility for a long distance and discharges responsibilities other than just issuing books. It should be bigger and expand into the empty top floor.
I wasn't suggesting you were mistaken and even less questioning the reliability of Sir Frank. Indeed, in regards to familiarity with Sir Frank Chalton Francis' integrity, you should know that in Stroud Green we speak of little else.
Do you know when the railway was put through? This has acted as a big separator and means that the only convenient access for Harringay residents to the Harringay and Stroud Green library is via the pedestrian overbridge. I suspect that many in Harringay do not even know of the existence of this jewel.
Contrary to assertions of the council in the 1990s, our library is well located: on top of a bus stop, seconds from a group of shops and one minute from a railway station. Two minutes from a large council estate (Chettle Court).
I think a renaming (or reversion to the original) is a good idea, especially if it would serve to remind ladder folk that its their library as much as anyone's.
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You guys too with Sir Frank! Well I never. You see we are all the same under the skin.
Railway opened in 1852.
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Permalink Reply by John Hinshelwood on
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You might find this short history of the library interesting.
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Thanks John.
(Glad to see that you've amended your potted history, but would be good if it could be further ammened to clearly pick up on the discovery of the original idea that the library should serve as the Stroud Green & Harringay library. The book by Frank Chalton Francis offers the opportunity to verify that?)
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Burt's idea was countered with an idea that Islington and Hornsey should share the cost of a libray for Stroud Green, but Islington weren't interested. instead they built the library, now demolished, in Hanley road.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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239 Wightman looks like an ordinary terraced house. No reason however that it couldn't have served as an auxiliary library, particularly during the War. There's no sign of bomb damage though: it's pretty dilapidated but that's probably because it seems to be in multi-occupancy and is sadly in need of maintenance.
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