Townspeople organized a protest through Facebook to prevent the closure of their beloved public library.
The public library in Stony Stratford, England typically holds 16,000 volumes of books. But now the shelves are completely bare—and the effect of all those empty walls is almost frightening.
That’s exactly what the booklovers of this small country town intended. When residents got wind that the government in nearby Milton Keynes was considering shutting down the library due to a budget shortfall, they decided to rally together and take action.
“In theory the closure is only out for consultation,” Robert Gifford, chair of the town council, told The Guardian, “but if we sit back it will be too late. One man stopped me in the street and said, ‘The library is the one place where you find five-year-olds and 90-year-olds together, and it’s where young people learn to be proper citizens’. It’s crazy even to consider closing it.”
The townspeople launched a campaign on Facebook, encouraging every town resident to take out the maximum of 15 books, with the goal of emptying the shelves completely by closing time last Saturday. They managed to complete the task with 24 hours to spare.
We’re not sure how many of the townspeople have read their rentals (latecomers likely got stuck with manuals on car repairs and animal husbandry), but we’re betting the late fees alone will go a long way towards making up that shortfall. And hopefully, the government has learned its lesson to keep its hands off the residents’ beloved books.