Volunteers who run Jesmond Library say they hope it will reopen fully in January, resuming its place at the heart of the local community.

The library closed when the first national lockdown was introduced in March 2020, but has been reopening gradually. “We used to be open from 9:30am to 4:30pm, and now we are open from 10am until 4pm on two days, so it’s slightly shorter hours, but we are mostly reopened,” explains Sarah Mercer, a trustee of the library. The library currently hosts Spanish and German conversation groups, French classes for children and is restarting its series of Thursday evening talks. It also offers one-to-one IT support, and is the base for litter-picking and other community activities.

Members of the local community set up Friends of Jesmond Library in 2013 to save the library after Newcastle City Council decided to close it down.

“The first few shifts [after the reopening] were a bit eerie,” says Sophie Beadling, who began volunteering at the library in 2018, when she was at university. “There weren’t a lot of people coming in because many of our visitors are quite elderly. But now it’s getting back to what it used to be – full of people and happiness.” The volunteers carry out regular cleaning to ensure books and equipment are sanitised, paying special attention to the library’s suite of computers, and visitors are asked to register with the NHS track and trace app.

The Friends are keen to recruit more volunteers. “Our volunteers are a wide variety of people, mostly locals, but not only, and a lot of people who are retired, but again, not only,” says Mercer. “They’re all people who just want to make sure the library stays open.”

For more information about applying to volunteer visit http://jesmondlibrary.org/volunteer/