After its initial closure in March 2020, the Working Class Movement library has re-opened the doors to its reading room for bookings.
Founded in the 1950s by the late Ruth and Edmund Frow, The Working Class Movement Library is acknowledged as one of the most important collections of historical material on radical working class organisations in the country.
Due to Covid-19, the library shut its doors in March of 2020, in line with government guidelines. Instead championing its accessibility though its website, so as many people could enjoy the collections as possible, even when the building was closed to the public.
We’re delighted to be able to reopen our Reading Room this week – more at https://t.co/btjHzofYeM. If you’d like to book a space (first available date now is Thursday 22 April when there’s one space remaining), please drop us a line at info@wcml.org.uk pic.twitter.com/liIm1164LN
— WCML (@wcmlibrary) April 14, 2021
Speaking to Library Manager, Lynette Cawthra, she said: “It’s certainly great to hear voices again in our building.
“We can only have two readers at any one time so people need to book as we can’t yet have drop ins, so it’s certainly not normality, we would normally be welcoming people in as soon as they ring the doorbell!”
This week also sees the Library’s highly popular free online talks start up again, after a run of nearly forty successful events in 2020, having been moved online from the annexe last year.
The Invisible Histories series is live-streamed weekly on Wednesdays at 2pm, with all talks recorded and available afterwards to view here.
“We won’t be stopping online [talks] as they have proved extremely popular and appealed to a much wider audience geographically. As a charity we have a lot of friends who don’t live locally who have really appreciated being part of the library in this way.
“It has been great to have distanced speakers, it’s now about figuring out how we can run as a ‘hybrid’ system.”
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In normal times the Library is open to the public on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons, and admission is free. Join-up details for are available on the day of the talks here.
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