Target reached!
Everything we raise above our target will be spent on more electronic billboards and...
Put ads across Nottingham to save our libraries
Nottingham, United Kingdom
Aim
Nottingham Council plans to close Aspley, Basford, and Radford Lenton Libraries. We plan to save them.
A few weeks ago we learned that Nottingham City Council were planning to close Aspley, Basford, and Radford Lenton libraries.
In those few weeks we've built a campaign to save them. We are a team of library users: parents, pensioners, kids, students, workers. Lovers of libraries all.
These libraries are beautiful. They were built in the 1920s and 30s in some of the most deprived areas of the city and they are magnificent buildings. Two were built with substantial donations from Nottingham Miners Welfare. Two are Carnegie libraries, built with donations by the 19th century philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. They're not the Council's to close.
In the few weeks we've existed we've been on BBC East Midlands today (several times), SundayPolitics, ITV Central, Good Morning Britain, Notts TV, and the Nottingham Post. See our press coverage on our website.
We've done more to publicise these closures than the Council responsible for them. We are currently in the consultation phase, which means the Council are gathering responses from the public.
We have distributed thousands of leaflets, we have a full suite of social media accounts, and we've organised well attended read-ins at each of the affected libraries. We have an online petition which has been signed by more than 1,500 people and over a hundred local authors have signed an open letter to the Council.
But we need to do more. The consultation closes on 24 April and we would like to buy electronic bill board space across the city to tell people this is happening and get them to complete the consultation. We will also rent an ad van to tour the affected areas to get the message out.
So far the trade unions have funded our campaign and we are grateful to them for their support. But billboards are expensive. They are very effective though, and we think it is worth trying to raise the money to get some.
It costs £450 for one electronic billboard, around £800 for two. We'll book as many as we can afford to run for two weeks in the run up to the closure.
Our distinctive logo features on all of our publicity and you can see it on all of the videos we've made of our many media appearances.
We believe we can win, but we only have a few weeks left. Libraries like these are a gift from a previous generation and we should do everything we can to ensure we pass them on.
This project successfully funded on 15th April 2022