My favourite thing to do when I’m giving tours of my college on an open day is to take visiting students upstairs in Pembroke’s college library. The amazement of the prospective applicants reflects my own nervous (and nerdy) excitement when I was an offer holder seeing the grand, oak-beamed reading room for the first time. I find myself saying every time how if you’re going to be studying all week, you might as well do it somewhere beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong, my local libraries aren’t eyesores, but I always relish the honeymoon period back in Cambridge. I find myself staring out of the window at the trees by the AMES library, or up at the ceiling of the UL as if it were a Medieval church. That is, before I realise I have 1,999 words left to write.

Regardless, one of my favourite libraries to return to is Cambridge’s own Central Library, somewhat bizarrely located in the Lion’s Yard shopping mall. It too reflects memories back at me, instead this time of my local council-run library back home. Like the libraries at the University, they are filled with the loveliest people ready to help when you can’t find a book or the printer inevitably breaks down. Unlike the University’s libraries, they are funded by the local authority and face increasing pressures as we go into another winter of “tough decisions”. Over 180 libraries have already been closed down since 2016.

“there are still free and welcoming spaces to read, work, or get a bit of extra support”

I’ve come to realise how grateful I am for somewhere to work that isn’t an overpriced café or a hybrid working set-up (in between my parents and their actual paid jobs). During the holidays, they serve as a reminder that when we move out and into the big wide world, there are still free and welcoming spaces to read, work, or get a bit of extra support. In just one afternoon at my local library, the librarians were hosting English language groups and sharing hugs with residents in between telling people how to log on to the wifi. Right next to me, there was a social work drop-in able to provide people with food and energy vouchers; my reading on critical approaches to Greek tragedy suddenly felt more and more detached from reality.

During term time, and out of it, it can also then provide a welcome return to that reality. People-watching in Central Library instead of in the Seeley forms a part of my weekly routine now, whilst I sit in their quiet study space before venturing into Mainsburys. Admittedly, there isn’t the magical silence that comes with a University or college library, but how much difference is there really between the sound of aggressive typing and the echoes of a shopping centre escalator? Their computers are certainly a lot more reliable than the ones in my faculty.

In turn, these are the places that come to mind when I think about the damaging effects of the reality of austerity. Towns and boroughs become communities through places like libraries and youth clubs, yet they are consistently underfunded, understaffed and at risk of closure.

“Towns and boroughs become communities through places like libraries and youth clubs”

Keir Starmer and his new government have a million and one problems to solve. Sometimes, it feels like all I can do is hope that community hubs like our libraries are not the price that we pay for a quick fix of those problems. The Cambridgeshire library card on my keys reminds me that there is something I can do to support these places. Getting a library card in Cambridge or wherever you call home outside of term time helps keep the libraries open, as they can prove how many people benefit from their services. You could then take advantage of their array of books and experience the thrill of non-mandated literature that hasn’t come from a tripos reading list. To top it off, you could have a study session whilst you’re there, and feel like a regular human being as opposed to a scholarly robot.

In these last couple of weeks before we go back to uni, I will keep on dutifully reading the Greek tragedies we’ve been set, only with the welcome reminder our libraries are on the front line ready to help when tragedy strikes, on and off the page. You can thank Euripides for that melodramatic metaphor.

Central Library might not feature on my list of fun facts whilst taking prospective students around college tours on an open day. But, it can prove itself as a vital extra space, and an extra dose of normality, that deserves to be protected just as much as Pembroke College Library.