Extend opening hours with professional librarians

Local libraries with professional librarians are very important to communities. They have an especially important role in rural communities where there is limited public transport. Local libraries support education, health and well-being including community cohesion and resilience. There is room to use our current libraries more creatively than tends to be the case at present, and models within and outwith Scotland and the UK to learn from. But at the heart of every library is a professional librarian, and opening hours with a professional librarian present which are accessible for every community member regardless of age and work commitments. In addition to specialist knowledge, the librarian creates a supportive atmosphere essential to many potential users. To add a personal note, in my village the library is the only public social place that a person whose immune system is compromised can feel safe in: I am welcomed by a librarian who knows me and my limitations, there is community but no crowding, and no one is singing or drinking alcohol with its well-known consequences for shouting, loud laughter and hence enhanced air transmission of viruses etc. I cannot be the only one who needs a space like that.

Research by the University of East Anglia, presented at the PKC hearings some two years ago, showed that libraries generate many times more financial benefit and savings to local authorities than they cost. Libraries can be seen as the part of the central hub of council provision for the well-being of all constituents, from mental health to social mobility. But libraries without professional librarians and accessible hours risk becoming arid spaces, with a corresponding loss to individual and community well-being.