Zadie Smith joins campaign to save her local libraryAuthor makes clear her belief in community institutions and speaks out in bid to save branch at Kensal Rise
Dwarfed by a massive electric crucifix and surrounded by dusty portraits of saints, Zadie Smith sat on stage in the back room of a trendy, north London pub looking more like she had wandered into a secret revival meeting than become the figurehead of a campaign to save Kensal Rise library, her local.
But when she began speaking it quickly became clear that her belief in community institutions, like that library, is stronger than any less earthly faith.
"I can see that if you went to Eton or Harrow, like so many of the present government, it is hard to see how important it is to have a local library," she said, to very unlibrary-friendly cheers and whoops from the packed audience. "But then, it's always difficult to explain to people with money what it's like to have very little.
"But the low motives [of the government] as it tries to worm out of its commitment ... is a policy so shameful that they will never live it down.
"Perhaps this is why they are so cavalier with our heritage," she added. "The fewer places there are to find a history book these days, the better."
Local libraries, said Smith, are "gateways to better, improved lives".
In 1894, Mark Twain wrote that "a public library is the most enduring of memorials: the trustiest monument of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them".
Six years later, he opened Kensal Rise library. As he predicted, it endured: for more than 100 years, it has been a cornerstone of the community.
But this is one of Brent council's six libraries that face imminent closure – along with 800 libraries around the country, a fifth of the total. It risks becoming an "enduring memorial" to nothing more inspirational than government budget cuts that, in Brent's case, have left Brent with a £37m financial hole this year.
But Smith has little patience with the council's claims that there is little choice but to close half their libraries. She spoke of discovering literature and learning as a teenager through exploring her local branch. Of the opportunities her library gave her – and of the opportunities that similarly stretched but dedicated branches continue to give to children across the country – children who otherwise would have no access to that world.
Looking back at the life-changing impact libraries had on her teenage self, she said, bought home to her what ahorribly misconceived, short-sighted and disastrous policy it is for local authorities to close their libraries.
So beloved were libraries in her impoverished household, she recalled that she and her brothers used to play games in which soft toys were forced to take out books from pretend libraries and stuffed pandas were lectured about late fees.
"It's all very well replacing local libraries with enormous libraries – but for those families for whom getting on a train to visit the British Library is inconceivable, having a local branch 100 yards from your front door can change your life."
he organiser of the event, David Butcher, sketched out his expectations for the future.
"We drew up a proposal showing Brent how to achieve more hours, more books and more community space for two-thirds less money by 2013," he said. "We could be operating, by far, the lowest cost-per-user library in the borough.
"We also identified £1.2m in back-room savings they can make in their library services budget. But the council have given every indication possible that they will sweep our suggestions aside," he said.
On 4 April, Brent will post its recommendations online. The final decision will be made a week later, on 11 April. "In a sense, that will be the end of this phoney war," added Butcher. "That's when our battle will start in earnest. That's when we will take the gloves off."
{Photo : Zadie Smith speaking at Kensal Rise library with fellow author Tim Lott.
Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian}