All Leicestershire's university libraries are now open to everyone

Here's a good news story from the Leicester Mercury:

Universities across Leicestershire are opening up their libraries to everyone in the county. The new scheme means libraries at the University of Leicester, De Montfort University, and Loughborough University will be open to anyone who lives, works, or studies in the area.

Anyone aged 18 and older in Leicester, Leicestershire, or Rutland can sign up to the libraries for free and borrow up to 10 books at a time. The new arrangement is part of the Universities Partnership, a group formed in 2022 involving the three universities and Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council, and Rutland County Council.

The report goes on to quote Paul Angrave from the Universities Partnership:

"Universities are fantastic assets to their regions and by opening their library doors to local people, we are not only welcoming them onto our campuses - we are providing a wonderful additional service. The educational resources we are making available will benefit our locality and reflect our collective ambition to inspire and provide additional learning opportunities for local people."

When I first moved back to Leicestershire, there were no turnstiles at the entrance to the library at the University of Leicester, or anything like that. So you could just wander in and read to your heart's content - what you couldn't do was borrow books.

It was in those days that I discovered my favourite misprint there.

While I was taking my part-time MA at Leicester I had membership of the library, and when I completed it I was given a free card. I thought this would be a lifetime perk, but the university brought in a charge not long afterwards. Since then I have paid for a ticket in a couple of years, but for the most part have not bothered.

So well done to the three universities for making their libraries free to all.