Dunkeld filmmaker Euan Wilding has helped protect his community’s library by capturing how much it means to local children.
Last month, Dunkeld and Birnam residents came out in force to protest the closure of Birnam Library, after word got out that the council were reviewing the facility.
A campaign to save the library followed, and a huge part of its success has been credited to the work of dad-of-two Euan, whose own young children are avid book-borrowers from the library.
“My son in particular will take out literally hundreds of books,” explains Euan, who is a full time documentary filmmaker and owns his own Wilding film company.
“We use it loads and when we heard that it might be under threat, my wife Caroline and I felt we couldn’t not do anything about it.
“The kids overheard us talking and were so upset. The were keen to talk about it, like: ‘What can we do?'”
While Caroline organised the demonstration, which saw around 100 people turn out with handmade placards to ‘Save Birnam Library’, Euan set about capturing what made the library worth saving.
He took his camera down to the library one Monday morning and interviewed users, young and old, about why they loved the library.
And what he uncovered was an outpouring of passionate support for the small but mighty institution.
Birnam Library is lifeline service for rural community
“I am a documentary filmmaker, and depending what you’re working on, it can be difficult to get people to speak,” Euan reveals.
“But that was not the case with this. Everybody I approached was keen to share how much the library meant to them. Even people who haven’t been using it regularly felt very strongly about the fact it could’ve been lost.”
In the film, young readers cite their reasons for keeping the library open, ranging from, “because I love reading more than anything” and “the best books in the world are here” to “because I like learning about snakes”.
And though many of those he interviewed were young bookworms, he found that love for the library was “not just a kid thing”, with several parents and adult users testifying that the library is a “hub” for the community.
“There’s a whole community of all generations that use the library, rely on it and value it,” Euan explains.
“Plus it’s the only library around for miles. For a lot of people, if you take away that library, they don’t have a library they can access at all.
“It really felt like people were coming together to save Birnam Library because collectively, they decided this little thing really matters. And that doesn’t happen very often.”
Libraries help kids ‘discover’ the world
As a parent, Euan sees libraries as vital resources for teaching children how to develop their interests away from ever-present screens.
“It’s really important to help kids have a relationship with knowledge where it’s not just that any question you have in life, your instinct is to pick up a phone or pick up a tablet,” he says.
“I think libraries are great for that because you don’t know what you’re going to discover. Plus it’s free, there are no barriers to access. That’s really important too.
“I was speaking to someone the other day whose wee boy takes out a load of reference books about different types of shells,” he smiles. “He’s obsessed.
“You’re never going to get that on your Key Stage reading list at school!”
‘Use it or lose it’ is wrong attitude
Following the community campaign, Perth and Kinross Council found the £190,000 required to keep rural libraries open for another year, which Euan says is “brilliant”.
But he fears that a “use it or lose it” attitude would miss the point of the campaign.
“We will use the next 12 months to show the councillors they made the right decision, because I know money is tight. But that ‘use it or lose it’ thing is so negative; you just can’t close these things,” he insists.
“I’m sure the council collect data on how much it’s used. And sure, you can have a low number of visitors.
“But you can’t always quantify the value to that person of that visit.
“Birnam Library might look like a rounding error on a spreadsheet,” he says. “But the community love it so much that the loss would’ve been such a blow.
“And honestly, once we start closing libraries, you’ve got to start worrying about where our priorities are.”
Conversation