Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library
Working to improve the resources and services of Tate South Lambeth Library in London SW8
Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library are selling crime fiction books and thrillers at the library on Saturday July 13th at 11am-4pm.
Pick up a bargain – books are priced at only £2-£3.
Never tried crime fiction? – why not enter the raffle for a stack of books for the whole family?
All proceeds will be used to buy equipment or materials for the library or to fund special activities.
Saturday June 22nd is the date for the library’s public forum – where you can get an update on performance, plans and policies from the head of Lambeth’s library service, Susanna Barnes.
This is an opportunity for library users to raise questions, proposals – and complaints.
And you can get to know our new manager, Rita Chakraborty.
So come along to Tate South Lambeth library on June 22nd at 2-4pm.
On Saturday June 15th – from 10am to 4pm- Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library will be running our annual book sale at the library.
Over 500 books donated by local people, supplemented by withdrawn library books, will be on sale, with all the proceeds used to buy equipment and materials to support the library’s services.
Friends’ book sales (of which this is the ninth so far) have been very successful, raising well over £1,000 for our library.
So we invite you to help us by:
This year, weather allowing, we’ll put a stall outside the library, to catch passing traffic. The stall will include the updated and expanded version of The Oval Cookbook – a collection of recipes from people from 31 countries, who live or work in Oval, and the contributors’ personal stories. The proceeds of the book’s sale will go the Triangle Adventure Playground in Oval.
At the 2019 annual general meeting, held on May 22nd, the chairman – Edith Holtham – reported that the short- and medium- term outlook for Tate South Lambeth Library looked more positive than it did 12 months earlier.
Funding for our library, which had been covered by special allocations whose maintenance was not certain, has been re-incorporated into the overall Lambeth libraries budget. At the same time Lambeth Council is no longer actively discussing the replacement of our library by a single “town centre library” for the north of the borough. These developments are seen as maintaining the status of Tate South Lambeth as a full-service library, at least for the short and medium term, as against the demotion to a one-room, largely unstaffed “neighbourhood library”, that was threatened in 2016.
The past year has seen a new strand in Friends’ campaign against such demotion, with a week-long monitoring by volunteers of how many people enter the library and their interaction with staff. This confirmed the vital importance of the constant presence of professional library staff.
The Heyday of Vauxhall Gardens
David Coke, co-author with Alan Borg of Vauxhall Gardens: A History, will lead a history walk through Vauxhall on Monday May 20th.
This guided walk is organised by the Vauxhall Society/Vauxhallhistory.
Meet outside Starbucks, Vauxhall Station SW8 1SP at 2.30pm sharp, for a walk that will last approximately one hour.
All are welcome but the organisers suggest a contribution of £5 to go to the Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library. Thanks!
Friends’ annual general meeting will be held at the library on Wednesday May 22nd, starting at 6.30pm.
After the regular stuff (reports from the chairman and the treasurer, the election of the committee for 2019/2020) the meeting will discuss the outlook for Tate South Lambeth Library now that the prospect of it being replaced by a new, “town centre” library for the north of the borough seems to be off the immediate agenda..
If you would like to propose other items for the agenda, please do so now –email friendsoftsl@hotmail.com or leave a note addressed to Friends of TSL at the library desk. Also please contact us if you’d like to stand for the committee. We are keen to have new members.
Monday May 20th, 7pm (doors open at 6.30)
As part of Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival Tate South Lambeth Library will be hosting a talk by the author Peter Conradi on his new book – a memoir of an eventful life, both literary and personal.
About the author:
Peter Conradi was the authorised biographer of Iris Murdoch ( 2019 marks the centenary of her birth) and his memoir contains new material on her. His other published works include Going Buddhist (2004), At the Bright Hem of God (2009), and A Very English Hero : the Making of Frank Thompson (2012). He has also written or reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, Financial Times, Spectator, Independent and Guardian, and appeared on programmes on Radio 3 and 4, and BBC TV.
Here’s some very good news about funding for Tate South Lambeth, in the words of the head of the libraries service, Susanna Barnes:
Lambeth has fully restored the funding for Tate South Lambeth and Durning Libraries and they are now provided for as part of the library and archive service budget. The Council recognises the huge contribution that libraries have made in delivering a range of services to the local community and the overall improvement of the service in the last few years and is keen to protect the service from further savings.
Why is this good news?
Because it ends an uncertainty that had been hanging over Tate South Lambeth library for the past three years while it was being funded not from the overall libraries budget but through a separate, special allocation of money. So each year it was unclear whether that money would continue or the full public library service at TSL be allowed to fade away.
Now TSL is back within the budget for Lambeth Libraries – which Susanna’s words show have received a vote of confidence from the Council.
Friends of TSL want to thank Susanna Barnes for running a library service that fully deserves recognition – and also Councillor Sonia Winifred (formerly library manager at TSL and Durning) who as holder of the libraries portfolio has been a staunch supporter of the service at a difficult period for Council finances..
You can find out more from Susanna Barnes at the next library public forum, at Tate South Lambeth on Saturday March 2nd.
So come along on Saturday March 2nd 2-4pm. Everyone is welcome – to ask questions and make their views known.
Wednesday December 5th 7pm
Christine Lindey, a renowned art historian, talks about her latest book, Art for All.
The book reveals a forgotten or marginalised area -British socially committed art from the 1930s through to the Cold War. With over 100 illustrations, she demonstrates why the artists deserve to be rediscovered. This extensively researched book provides a vivid understanding of the political and aesthetic contexts that turned a wide variety of individuals into socially committed artists. It also examines the artist’s circumstances of production and patronage and explains why these often handicapped those artists who were swimming against the current of their times.
At the current time, when young artists are joining the popular demand for social change, this book takes on a new relevance.
Copies of the book will be available at the talk.
Entry free. Refreshments available.