‘Luke had to pick his niece up from school and there was a poster on the noticeboard by the gate. He sent me a photo.’ He pulled out his phone and showed Lois a selfie that his partner had taken with the poster.
‘Right. Well, we were a bit previous putting the posters up. Robert thinks the bosses will be upset that we’ve put ourselves in for the competition when they want to close the library.’
‘I think it’s brilliant. They’re mad if they don’t let you go for it, it’d be amazing publicity for all the county libraries as well as Croftwood.’
‘Hopefully, they’ll share your enthusiasm. I’d better go up to Robert. Will you have time for a coffee afterwards?’
‘Yeah, for sure. Come and find me.’
Lois climbed the stairs up to the top floor where Robert’s office was. She hoped she’d arrived before the boss but when she knocked on the door and was called in, he was already sat there.
‘Ah, Lois, this is David Hunter. Head of County Libraries.’
David stood up and leaned forward to shake her hand. He looked pleasant enough. He had dark hair, was about six feet tall and was probably in his mid-forties. ‘Good to meet you, Lois.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Right, so David, as you know, I asked Lois to stand in at Croftwood after Rosemary retired. Obviously, due to the planned closure, it was a caretaker position, but Lois has implemented some improvements, at no cost to the library I should add, and it seems to have revitalised things at Croftwood somewhat.’
‘Thank you for the overview, Robert.’ He turned to Lois. ‘I understand that you used to work here at the Hive.’
‘Yes, I loved my job here, but Croftwood Library is somewhere that has become very special to me. It had been well looked after before I arrived but hadn’t been brought into the 21st century and no-one had tried to make that happen because I’m sure there would have been some resistance. Anyway, I just made some very simple changes but the main thing we’ve done is to start a book club.’
‘Book clubs are fairly common in libraries,’ said David directing a conspiratorial smile towards Robert.
‘Ours is different,’ said Lois, undeterred. ‘We don’t meet as a huge group; we try to match people with someone else who has read the same book then one evening a month we host an evening at a local coffee house where everyone comes to meet their book buddy. We call it date-with-a-book-club. We’ve tried to roll it out to the mobile library too, but Steph would be in a better position to tell you about that. Our club has been so successful that we’re looking to expand to a second venue.’
‘And that’s reflected in the borrowing rates, is it?’ he addressed the question to Robert who looked awkwardly at Lois.
‘We are starting to see an uplift,’ she began. ‘We’ve also added an exclusivity element to the book club to make it more attractive for people to contact us in the library as part of it. And we’ve successfully fundraised to make part of the children’s library into a teenage reading space.’
‘I think whatever way we look at it, the fact that you have reached the voting stage of the national competition is good for Worcestershire County Libraries and to pull your entry now would be a shame. I do think you should have run it by us before you entered but I can see that you’re passionate about Croftwood and that has perhaps been lacking there for some time, leading to us overlooking its potential.’
‘Thank you, David. I appreciate your support. We’ll make every effort to fly the flag for County Libraries, not only Croftwood.’
‘And in that vein, I’m sure the Hive would assist in spreading the word, Robert?’
‘Absolutely.’ Robert looked relieved that he seemed to be off the hook for somehow letting this go under the radar until now.
‘So, does that mean Croftwood has a reprieve from closure?’ asked Lois, hopefully.
‘It does not, I’m afraid,’ said David. ‘Unfortunately, the savings to the budget are already part of the plan for the next financial year so there’s nothing we can do.’
‘But there is a final decision to be made in January?’
‘Yes,’ he said uncertainly, ‘but it’s more of a formality.’
Lois thought that’s what he would say but it was worth asking and she still held out hope that things could change depending on how successful they were.
‘Fair enough. Thanks for your time today, David, Robert.’ She stood up and shook each of their hands in turn.
Once she’d left the office and closed the door, she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Thank goodness neither of them had realised that they’d already publicised the voting for the next round. Linda would be excited to have the official go-ahead and she would ask Andrew if he could start publicising through the Hive as well. He was loitering at the information desk when she got to the ground floor.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘My treat, they gave us the go-ahead.’
‘Brilliant, can you stretch to a Christmas cookie as well as a coffee?’
They sat at a table which overlooked the river.
