16 September 2016

Coming Soon: Forest Hill Community Library

October 2016 will see a new start for Forest Hill library as a Community Library. We have made no secret of the fact that the shift from direct council management to community management was something that concerned us, but once Lewisham Council made the decision to turn this into a community library, we wanted to make sure it would be the best community library possible.

In Forest Hill we are fortunate to have a number of local traders (particularly Pauline Wright and Simon Higgs) who are passionate about our community, and next door to the library we have V22 who have great experience in the management of heritage buildings, rental of studio space, and a real desire to be part of the community. Together with the Forest Hill Society and a few other individuals passionate about the library, we were able to submit a successful bid to the council, setting out our vision for its future — with book lending playing a critical role.

This October will see the transfer of management from Lewisham council to the Forest Hill Community Library team. It will be overseen by representatives of V22, Forest Hill Traders and Forest Hill Society. This is a major undertaking for all of us, but we are confident that we will be able to deliver a community library of which the community will be proud.

The upstairs space in the library has been under-utilised in the past and, in order to generate income for running the building, we are letting this space to tenants as offices and deskspace. There should be little or no impact on existing library services and the workspace will be managed and administered by the experienced team at V22.

This offers a unique opportunity to have workspace in this great location and to support our community library. Interested creatives, freelancers, social enterprises and entrepreneurs are invited to contact deskspace [at] v22london.com.

A major part of running the community library will fall to volunteers. We already have over 80 volunteers, but we need more to ensure the library stays open for 66 hours per week! People are needed to assist with book borrowing, book returns and many other aspects of running a library. Now is a great time to volunteer, even if you can only manage a few hours a week or even a month. Please complete the form below to join our list.

Volunteer for Forest Hill Library
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More information about the Library at:
Website: Foresthilllibrary.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ForestHillLibrary
Twitter: @LibrarySE23

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