Community Library - Little Common's success story

That was in 2002.

Six years on and Little Common's community library is thriving.

This is never more evident than at the annual open day - a showcase for what the volunteers can offer the community.

The extent of the book sale at Tuesday's open day also demonstrated what the community does in support of the library.

The library has around 250 members. As Yvonne Pearson, whose late husband was the DIY scheme's founding father, explained: "We have a stock of around 2,000 books. We could have 3,000 if we had the space to store them.

"We make no charge for the service. We don't impose fines for late books. We have a donations box for late books and we find we get more money in like that!

"People are often happy to put a pound in if a book is a week late."

Fellow volunteer Sue Clarke said: "There are about 1,200 books in the book sale today.

"The sale enables us to provide new books.

"Some of the books on sale today are duplicates or books we have taken off the shelves. People are very generous in donating books to the library."

The library is open at Little Common Community Centre on Tuesdays from 9.30am until 4pm and on Fridays from 9.30 until 12.30pm.

Yvonne said: "The helpers are very positive. We always say they are wonderful.

"I think most people think the library is a nice place to come and chat and browse the shelves."

Not only was the sale of surplus books going well at Tuesday's open day, the normal library service was, as usual, in great demand.

Volunteers providing refreshments were working flat-out and there was brisk trade at the cakes and bric-a-brac stalls.