SATURDAY 8th February marked National Libraries Day. Local libraries are not only vital repositories of knowledge, but are central to our communities. They are places where the unemployed can go to find job information, where children without computers can do their homework, and where social events for young and old take place

Suzy Stride, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Harlow, visited Great Parndon Library on National Libraries Day to show her support and speak to the hard working staff.

This week hundreds of events have taken place in Libraries across the country to mark National Libraries Day.

Everyone can get involved and support either their local Library in Harlow or Libraries in general. There are 3 ways you can get involved with National Libraries Day:

1. Visit a Library in your local area.

2. Tweet your support to @natlibrariesday and encourage others to use their Libraries. The official hash tag is #NLD13 (www.twitter.com/natlibrariesday)

3. ‘Like’ National Libraries Day on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Libraries-Day/323090687701341?fref=ts) and encourage others to.

Librarian Kat Bower said “It’s good to promote Harlow libraries though National Libraries Day to promote books and reading. It means we are able to tell people about audio books which are available online, users can download books onto tablets now as libraries have modernised to keep up with the times.”

Suzy Stride, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate, said:

“It was a pleasure to visit one of Harlow’s valuable libraries. Harlow’s libraries are central to our community and are a vital source of knowledge. National Libraries Day celebrates the contribution to our community that Libraries make.

“The Libraries Campaign estimates that over 600 libraries will have been closed or turned into volunteer libraries over three years to the end of 2013. The Library Campaign predicts at least 1,000 libraries could be lost by 2016.

“Harlow needs it Libraries and they can only be kept going by the hard work of library professionals. Local volunteers make an invaluable contribution, but their work must be supported by a core of library professionals.”