In a creative stroke that once seemed merely pertinent but now seems increasingly poignant, UK pro-libraries activist Phil Bradley created a series of “Save Libraries retro posters” on behalf of the #Savelibraries campaign. “I love looking through old posters, advertisements, bill stickers and so on, and I got to thinking, I wonder what the Savelibraries campaign would look like through the medium of some of those old posters?” He then went ahead and recrafted old 20th-century recruiting and other wartime propaganda posters for a new 21st-century conflict – the battle to save public libraries.
What makes them sadly, especially timely is that British public libraries now apparently are engaged in a battle for survival against an enemy with a specific ideological objection to their very existence. Remind you of any other conflict? No wonder the images fit the subject so well.
Bradley’s library posters are now available in full on his Flickr account. ” Several people have asked me if they can use them,” he states. “I’m making no claim over them other than having a good idea and putting it into practice. If you want to use them, feel free.” Go ahead and put them to work in the greater fight – before it’s too late.
Thanks for your very kind words. There are in total about 50 posters that I’ve created over the years, and they are all freely available for people to use in their fights to protect libraries. If you use them, I’d love to have some photographs to put into the Flickr folder to show others how they’re being used.