Community library success in Caton after council cuts

Caton village library is now housed in the Victoria Institute

People in a North Lancashire village say there can be life for a local library after the council pulls the plug.

Blackpool Council wants to close the libraries at Mereside and Grange Park.

In 2006, the county library at Caton near Lancaster closed, but the village still has a service thanks to a team of volunteers.

Since 2008, there's been a library in the village's Victoria Institute, with all the books being donated by locals.

"We put a notice in our local newsletter asking for a few hundred books - we got a few thousand," says Treasurer of the Caton Community Library Trust, Barbara Dearnley.

'Godsend'

But it's not just old books on offer. Many recent books are rubbing spines on the shelves with older donations.

Barbara says the community library has proved invaluable to older members of the village: "Not everybody can travel into Lancaster to go to the main libraries now.

"It's been a godsend for them."

Now the library has been going for a couple of years, Barbara says it runs very smoothly: "When we first started, we needed volunteers a lot more, because we needed to tidy all the books up and catalogue them, but now it runs itself virtually."

Villagers can even order a books and music online from the county library service, and it will be delivered to the library at Caton once a week.

Barbara is offering to advise anyone interested in setting up a community library if they call in: "I would say to anybody that's got a community venue that wants to run a library, it's a good idea."

She's certainly happy in her role: "So long as the institute's open, so long as the building's here, hopefully there'll be a library here."