BACKGROUND
Vogue is proud to be a small hamlet in the parish of St.Day, around 3 miles from Redruth. Located in a former mining area the parish is at the heart of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape (a World Heritage Site). The Star Inn is a Punch Taverns lease and has been run by Mark and Rachel Graham for nine years. A popular and busy pub, it is frequented mainly by local business with the usual array of drinks, food, entertainment, local teams and even a three piece suite around a flat screen TV in the end room – a real home from home and a proper Cornish welcome.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Having heard about Pub is The Hub encouraging pubs to look into diversification, Mark and Rachel jumped at the idea of adding a community library to their comfortable TV room. They applied for a grant from the Community Services Fund of £979 which they received in November 2013 which they used to install shelving, a computer terminal and signage outside the pub. Books were installed by the end of November and the library was open by December 2013. Cornwall Council’s library service will ensure that the books on shelves are regularly updated and books requested online by The Star Inn’s library members will be delivered at least once a fortnight. The maximum number of books they can borrow is 18 over a three week period. In addition, library membership offers online access to whole host of other services such as reference libraries, online learning, newspapers and newspaper archives, careers information and even ancestry searches. Pat Terry, Communities Team Leader from Cornwall Council’s library services is delighted to have begun a unique partnership. She is pleased that this pilot scheme is an opportunity for people in rural areas to have access to library and internet services seven days a week in a warm and welcoming environment, rather than a five minute visit by a weekly or fortnightly library van. The key to this scheme is that is has professional input every time the library van delivers the books and it is not reliant upon well-meaning volunteers to keep the range up to date and displayed correctly.
OUTCOMES
Cornwall is blessed with many local authors and Colin Leamon, who writes with the pen name Hal Morris was the first to sign and donate his recently published book to the library – entitled Jackanories and Bedtime Stories, described as a cheeky book of verse and rude rhymes for kids. Living locally, Colin is an avid reader of autobiographies and had his eye on borrowing the Miranda Hart story whereas he knew his wife would be heading for the fiction section. As a proud Cornishman – he was a tin miner – Mark is keen to include some local reference books for the area, but for the moment, his daughter Keira, aged 4, loves the selection of children’s books. The bar room banter has already seen the pub’s Community Library christened “a book at beer time!”
LESSONS TO LEARN
As one of the pilot libraries, we found moving forward Pub is The Hub would arrange the signage.
This was around a 10 week lead-in for books to be on the shelves.
PROJECT CAPITAL COSTS (EXCLUDING VAT)
C.S.F. £979.00
Private/Public contribution None
TOTAL £979.00
Update 2017:
Since establishing the community library in the pub in 2013, Mark and Rachel have been inspired to look at other opportunities to deliver services to the local community. In April 2017, they started their take-away food service, giving the locals the opportunity to pre-order delicious freshly cooked food to be enjoyed in their own homes. The service is proving popular throughout the village.
For more information telephone 01423 546165 or email enquiries@pubisthehub.org.uk