Hands off our precious libraries

Hands off our precious libraries!
Hands off our treasured books!
Free computers boot up;
Any query we can look up.

Let’s defend our jobs and services
From all you neo-liberal crooks
So hands off our precious libraries
Hands off our treasured books!

Let stressed commuters rush about,
Inside there’s hush, no need to shout.
Community space, for every race,
Sanctuary in the centre of our city.

We must save our precious libraries,
Books enrich our vocabularies;
Fire imaginations off to far-distant realms.
A world of words inspires, overwhelms.

Tories preach austerity, all we ask is parity:
A chance for all to share and have a look.
Keep our libraries open, they’re a place where we can pop in
To savour the pleasure of a good book.

Keep our precious libraries,
Keep our treasured books.
Part of a collective history,
Not a puzzle or a mystery

If you take away our library
Society will much poorer be.
So let’s all strike back and organise
Shelves into Dewey decimals.

It may sound quite contrarian
But we need to keep our local librarian,
A guide to all the crannies and the nooks –
Hands off our precious libraries and books!

 

Sign the online petition to save Coventry’s libraries.

Thanks to Vicky Cowell, staunch defender of Coventry’s libraries and avid bookworm, for kicking this off with the first verse, and for much inspiration. For more information – see this report from the Coventry Telegraph and a recent Coventry Against The Cuts protest.

Libraries and council services are under threat across the country. We need to fight back. Get involved in a local anti-cuts group, or if there isn’t one where you live, set one up yourself!

Tags: books, cuts, libraries, poetry, Politics