Swiss Cottage library

• AS a regular user of Swiss Cottage library, I am puzzled and concerned about the failure of the library authorities to provide more than the scantiest impression of how any Camden library will function after the promised reopening early in September.

Trying to speak to someone by telephone about this has proved impossible.

Recently your correspondent Peter Rutherford wrote eloquently about the provision of books and urged us to “fight to exhaustion for the highest possible library standards in all respects”.

I wonder if the head of libraries has considered one other respect, a function of Swiss Cottage library which seems to have escaped attention: it is filled daily with scores of users of all generations – if mostly the younger people – for whom it is an extremely useful study centre.

The library’s own computers are not important to them because most bring their own.

What matters is that the large upstairs reading room offers quiet accommodation, away from home or college, a fine collection of works of reference, and a coffee shop if required.

As a professional writer who has spent endless and invaluable hours in Swiss Cottage library over 40 years, may I plead with the library authorities to be imaginative and devise socially-spaced seating that enables this use of the library to continue?

ALAN BROWNJOHN
Belsize Park, NW3