A local crime author has opened a little library in the town’s train station to encourage people to read and to make books more accessible to people across the town.
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00:00I'm in Hartlepool's train station and I'm with author Sharon Birch.
00:05Sharon, you've opened a little library here. What's the idea behind it?
00:09Well, I've just got so many books and I absolutely love books but when we downsized the house I just had far too many
00:15and I just, it really struck, I couldn't really part with them so I wanted to do something positive.
00:21So I just thought, well, I travel a bit for work and I've got lots of different train stations
00:25and there's lots of bookcases in different train stations but there isn't one here
00:29and I'm all about helping people read and raising the literacy levels of the town
00:34because we get criticised quite a lot for our area and I just think this is such a positive thing to do
00:40and I really struggle to part with bookcases but I had too many and I just thought, well,
00:44why not give a bookcase and some books to the station and that really helps and people can come and exchange,
00:49they can take one, they can donate to charity if they wish but we're not putting a charity box there
00:54it's a feel good thing and people can be free to take them and come back and exchange them
01:00or bring others that they want to leave, it's just like a give, give, win, win.
01:05What's been your reaction?
01:07Oh, fabulous, so many positive responses on social media, it's been spread and shared across all the different forums,
01:13I've had people message me who I don't know saying it's a marvellous idea and they've come and exchanged books,
01:18they've come and left some of their books and I hope we can keep it going.
01:23Would you encourage people to take a book and then bring another one back?
01:26If they can, absolutely, or share the book, give it on, give it on, because it's all about reading
01:31and we've got fabulous libraries in the town and people start finding an author that they really like,
01:36they can go and get some more books from the library and it's just brilliant,
01:39just the whole idea of entering another world and if you're getting on a train to London,
01:43you've got a three hour journey, maybe more depending on how long it takes,
01:47you can read a book or get halfway through it at least and read the rest of it on the way back, brilliant.