Libraries- an under-utilised resource?

I belong to a variety of organisations- many of them not-for-profit- and we are often looking for places to hold a meeting for an hour or so. There’s no way we can afford to pay for conference rooms, and while cafes might be good for a casual catch-up, they obviously don’t want people there for much longer than it takes to have a drink and a bite to eat.

It occurred to me that there could be a role for our community libraries here- not just for groups such as ours, but for consultants meeting clients  or small businesses that have training sessions or other business needs .

Libraries at present are closed to the public until 10am- but whats to stop the rooms being booked out for a small fee between say 8am and 10am?

Most libraries have wi-fi now and with a bit of investment could be set up to enable power point presentations. It might mean staggering the hours library staff work- and providing a bit more investment, but hey that’s possible.

Perhaps they could offer other services eg a librarian who is also a JP and can witness documents, printing facilities at cost for small colour-print runs and so on.

The library buildings themselves are a valuable community resource- so lets think about whether we can maximise the benefit from them!