Ed,

My name is Ivy, I am 11 years old. My family is a no tech family, and because we have no tech all my four siblings and parents love our books.

On my ride home from school on a normal lockdown free week, I would every afternoon stop by the library in Evans Head. Because I cannot do that anymore I am becoming tremendously depressed about the library being shut and the lack of new books in our house. At school I get bullied a lot and have little friends – I use books as a distraction from school, my failed tests and more.

Where are the rates we pay going, if all the libraries in NSW are shut? What are all the librarians doing in the libraries if no one is borrowing books or returning them? The library in Evans Head has been being renovated for the past six and a half months, they moved a small number of books from the real library into the tourist information centre, to serve as a small and temporary library. Then as soon as the renovated library was open to the public, we went straight into lockdown with hardly an hours’ notice so that means you only had a little time to get groceries let alone books.

I don’t think it’s very fair how people can go to the bottle-o to buy alcohol, and to the shop to buy cigarettes (that are so bad for you) and even to the bait and tackle shop to buy bait, when I can’t go to the library to borrow a book that exercises my brain. I don’t want or need to read my books off a phone, iPad, or any technology. Did you know that up to one hour a day of screen time for 1-2 weeks can dull your brain and cause temporary blindness and sensitivity to light?

Do you even think about those people who don’t have enough room or money for a device? The public computers at the library were and are a vital thing for many. Every time I went to borrow a book the computers were all occupied by people doing a wide range of things from fully grown adults playing chess, to high schoolers typing assignments. Once or twice, I had a go of those computers and was surprised at the quality of the machine for the amount of people that used those computers.

The opening of the libraries across New South Wales requires urgent action.

To the people who read this I am encouraging you to express your feelings about the shutting of the NSW libraries.

Ivy Lindsay-Fielding, Evans Head