Some time ago we noticed that our address wasn’t coming up online when filling in our address. We contacted Royal Mail to query our registered address and they gave us a surprising answer; both the library and The Carnegie Library Hub were using a postcode associated with an address, 188 Herne Hill Road, that no longer existed. Armed with Royal Mail’s confirmation of the correct postcode to use for our address of 192 Herne Hill Road, we confidently informed organisations of our correct address and thought that would be the end of it.
Unfortunately not, Lambeth Planning, Business Rates and some other official bodies assuredly maintained that our legal postcode was something else. Lambeth Street Naming helpfully updated the postcode to match the official address, and now we believe that we can confidently say we are at Carnegie Library, 192 Herne Hill Road, SE24 0DG. Despite trying to erase the wrong postcodes out there, you will see 0AG which ceased to exist some time back. As a final twist in this story, the building’s previous official (but basically also incorrect, as it was for an area much farther down the road) postcode was actually 0AY, but that was rarely used.
Follow? Or even care?
We’ll now get to the point of this article. On this quest of postcode correction, we stumbled on this wonderful website called allthelibraries.com which is an enthusiast run directory of all the libraries in London including Carnegie. We recently bought their book which is fun, colourful and supported by lovely stories. Our own Carnegie Library also features in their online directory. The index at the back is rather poignant; recently closed libraries are scored through to preserve their memories. Reminds us that we are lucky, given the perilous journey the Carnegie, and libraries nationally, have taken over the years. We can be grateful, although not complacent, that we have a well-run publicly funded library in our community.
We also met one of the artist and maintainers of the project and she was lovely. If you like libraries… in London… buy the book!