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To: City of London Culture, Heritage and Libraries Committee and Children and Community Services committee

Opening hours to suit the community at Artizan Street Library

After our well publicised local campaign, I am pleased to announce that the City of London agreed to extend the hours at Artizan Street Community Library. This is fantastic news! In addition to extending the hours the City will also now be trialling a Saturday opening slot for six months.

From 14th May 2018 the new Library hours will be as follows:

Monday- 8am-7pm
Tuesday- 8am-5.30pm
Wednesday- 8am-5.30pm
Thursday- 8am-5.30pm
Friday- 8am-5.30pm
Saturday- 9am-1pm

This really is tremendous news for the local community and it will now mean that this wonderful resource is available for even more people to use on a daily basis.

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and to the parents who came to the Guildhall last month to hand-in the petition. We couldn't have got this result without all of your support.

We need opening hours at Artizan Street Library that work for our community.

We want the committee to work with the community to establish a new spread of opening hours, and ensure the needs of local school children, students, workers and other residents are put first in this decision.

We propose a spread of hours comprising at least 3 evenings per week, so the library may be a resource for a greater number and variety of people.

We propose that the library opens on Saturdays so that parents and children can visit at their leisure. The Barbican library is open Sat: 9.30am–4pm, that’s what we need in Portsoken.

Why is this important?

From Tuesday to Friday, the library closes at 4pm, and it doesn’t open at all at weekends. Many children and students in local schools finish too late to to use the services after school, and residents working 9-5 jobs do not have much opportunity to access the library at all.

The current opening hours seem only to serve the needs of the City workers coming into the area during the day, rather than the people living in the local community.

This issue has been raised in a recent customer survey, and a consultation into a new spread of opening hours is under way. We, the residents of the City of London, want to make sure that our voices are put front and centre on this issue, rather than the corporations and City workers, which is too often the case.
City of London, London

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Updates

2018-04-19 09:52:06 +0100

Petition is successful with 115 signatures

2018-04-18 22:55:50 +0100

Dear friends,

After our well publicised local campaign, I am pleased to announce that the City of London has agreed to extend the hours at Artizan Street Community Library. This is fantastic news! In addition to extending the hours the City will also now be trialling a Saturday opening slot for 6 months.

From 14th May 2018 the new Library hours will be as follows:

Monday- 8am-7pm
Tuesday- 8am-5.30pm
Wednesday- 8am-5.30pm
Thursday- 8am-5.30pm
Friday- 8am-5.30pm
Saturday- 9am-1pm

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and to the parents who came to the Guildhall last month to hand-in the petition. We couldn't have got this result without all of your support.

Well done everyone!

2018-03-23 18:06:59 +0000

Dear friends,

Together over the past four or five months we have been spearheading a campaign for the City of London to review the opening hours of our local Artizan Street library.

Our online petition attracted 115 signatures from local people calling for a change in hours and this culminated in a meeting last week with the Head of Library Services and the Chairman of the Culture, Heritage & Libraries Committee with local residents.

Can you help us with this one final push? Please complete the City of London online survey here before Sunday 25th March
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/artizanhours

Thanks for your support and let's hope our hard work on this issue pays off.

2018-03-05 12:28:37 +0000

Dear friends,

We’ve reached a crucial point in our campaign - next week, we’re going to be delivering our petition to the Head of Barbican & Community Libraries.

There’s a key decision deadline in a couple of weeks, so now is the time to put the pressure on and ensure we get the right outcome. There are 3 ways you can help:

1. Share the petition:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/opening-hours-to-suit-the-community-at-artizan-street-library-1

2. Complete the City of London Artizan St Library survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/artizanhours

3. Come along to the petition hand-in.

We'll email the hand-in details as soon as confirmed. We will likely try to arrange it as close to the school run as possible so around 09:15am.

If you’re planning to come or have any questions, just email [email protected]

Hope to see you at the hand-in!

2018-02-05 18:31:24 +0000

Good news! On the back of our petition which received over 100 signatures, the City of London today announced a review into opening hours at Artizan St Library in order to make the library more accessible to children, families & workers. Result!

Thanks to all who signed the petition and helped make this issue a hot topic.

Now we need your help with the next part. The City has said: We want to plan any changes around an understanding of the needs and preferences of our local community, so we would be grateful if everyone who currently uses Artizan St library could complete the survey.

You can do this by going to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/artizanhours or by visiting the library during opening hours to fill out a paper copy. The Library will collect responses until 25th March. They will then publish their plans by 1st April.

Please make sure your voice is heard and take a moment to complete the survey. We need opening hours that work for our community. Many thanks!

2017-11-16 16:29:36 +0000

100 signatures reached

2017-10-31 23:39:24 +0000

50 signatures reached

2017-10-30 20:40:44 +0000

25 signatures reached

2017-10-30 19:16:38 +0000

10 signatures reached