Birmingham City Council effectively declared itself bankrupt in September 2023 by posting a Section 114 notice. Council leaders blamed a £760m bill for equal pay claims, problems installing a new IT system (£100m and rising) and £1bn in cuts over the past decade from the Conservative government. Michael Gove, then Levelling Up Secretary, appointed a team of six commissioners to begin a five-year intervention aimed at addressing the City Council’s financial problems.

Inevitably, as part of the ongoing measures, the axe has started to loom over many aspects of local services. In Spring 2024, in response to proposals to close up to 27 of Birmingham’s 35 community libraries, the legends that are Catherine O’Flynn and Liz Berry decided to do something about it.

They contacted writers who are based in or else have deep connections to the city, and paired each of them up with a library to undertake a micro-residency, creating a new piece of work inspired by their visits.

The result is Brum Library Zine, a neon pink-jacketed protest publication which was printed and circulated in all of the threatened libraries. I was and always will be very proud to have been invited to contribute. Here’s what I wrote on the back of a visit to Birchfield Library on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in April 2024.

In his own zine essay, Jonathan Coe quotes Alexei Sayle: “Austerity is the idea that the worldwide financial crash of 2008 was caused by Wolverhampton having too many libraries.” At the time of posting this piece (September 2024), Birmingham City Council’s consultation phase is drawing to a close, and the fate of the libraries still hangs very much in the balance.

Something draws me to second cities. The year I spent in Melbourne was the best of my life. Since then, I’ve spent over a decade in Birmingham, for better and for worse.

Tasked with writing about libraries in danger, I’m sitting in Birchfield, twenty-five world record javelin throws away from Alexander Stadium. That name gets me thinking of another second city, and a library lost in antiquity — a literal literary casualty of political upheaval.

The Fifth Edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt bears a faded handwritten Dewey Decimal mark — 916.20455. There is not a single date stamp on the inside label. This book hasn’t left the building for some time.

Its authors are unsparing in their description of Alexandria — “often said to be the greatest historical city with the least to show: founded by Alexander The Great, yet it bears no trace of him; site of one of the wonders of the ancient world, but there’s not a single notable monument remaining; ruled by Cleopatra and rival of Rome, now a provincial city overcrowded with people but short on prestige.” That final phrase is the one that stings.

And yet, and yet… Looking back to the Ptolemaic golden days, they concede Alexandria was once “a renowned centre of literary thought and learning, attracting some of the finest artists and scholars of the time. Its famed library contained 500,000 volumes…” A book lover’s dream. A paradise of contemporary thinking.

But in 48 BC, a besieged Julius Caesar (or more strictly speaking, his soldiers) put paid to all that. Fires started as a strategy for blocking the Egyptian fleet soon spread to the Library, partially destroying the building and much of its collection. (We’ll never know the full extent of the damage: Seneca, Plutarch and Cassius Dio disagree on precisely how many scrolls were reduced to ash.)

Woe to a city’s people when the flames of power politics come licking round their libraries, depriving them at a stroke not just of the books and the knowledge they contain, but also of those essential, often unnoticed functions such spaces serve in any modern multicultural community.

Meeting places for the newly arrived to learn the local language, or to find kinship with others who share their heritage and homeland. The first place for youngsters to exercise power in choosing what they want to read — for some, the only place to do so outside their bookless homes. A safe, secret, semi-silent space for students to work — or else to curate the impression of working, whilst in fact doing nothing more important than idling away hours with their tablets in their hands. Somewhere to stay warm or keep cool. Somewhere to feel welcome.

Civic leaders should stay the hand that wields the burning torch, not rush forward to light the fire themselves. Alexandria’s library is beyond all saving, but the vast early warning system of history means that, in our own second city, we still have time to avoid making the same mistake twice.