Rabble Rouser - Mick Jones with Subway Gallery's Gordon McHarg and Jane Ashley protest against the threatened closure of Kensal Rise Library

People across the UK gathered this weekend to protest against the potential closure of public libraries and in west London, musician and cultural icon Mick Jones evoked his Rock & Roll Public Library to add weight to the protests to save Kensal Rise Library and highlight the plight of libraries generally.

Question Time - Mick Jones encourages a gathering crowd to support Public Libraries in the UK

As Public Library supporters up and down the country urged people to take out as many books as possible to leave the shelves bare in time for ‘Wot, No Books?’ protests at the weekend, the guitarist for the Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, Carbon Silicon, and the Gorillaz, re-iterated his own support to keep libraries open and his own quest to set up new types of lending and reference facilities. It is Mick Jones’ hope that his own enormous collection of popular culture ephemera becomes a public resource.

The Manic Street Preachers' James Dean Bradfield was one of thousands of visitors to the Rock & Roll Public Library at CHELSEA space

Jones initially discussed the idea of making his own collection public a few years ago and a group including Jane Ashley, the writer Chris Salewicz , musician Leo Williams, gallerist and artist Gordon McHarg and CHELSEA space’s Donald Smith came together with Jones to discuss how to progress the idea. In order to bring the collection to public attention and highlight the quest for a permanent home The Rock & Roll Public Library had its first outing at CHELSEA space during March - April 2009 (http://www.chelseaspace.org/archive/jones-pr.html ). Since the inagural exhibtion at CHELSEA space it has been shown at the Westway Trust underneath London’s Westway flyover on Portobello Market (along with a Strummerville recording studio), and was also hosted by the Peter Blake Art Bus at the Vintage Goodwood festival. CHELSEA space Director Donald Smith also co-curated The Rock & Roll Public Library with Crispin Chetwynd at The Norwich Gallery, and another new section of Jones’ collection was shown as part of Should I Stay or Should I Go? CHELSEA space’s fifth year anniversary celebrations in 2010 (http://www.chelseaspace.org/archive/run-pr.html) the fifth year anniversary events also included an interview at Tate Britain between Mick Jones and writer and Barney Bubbles curator Paul Gorman (see http://www.chelseaspace.org/blog/archives/244).

Crispin Chetwynd's superb drawings for 'Tales From the Rock & Roll Public Library'

Artist and culinery expert Chrispin Chetwynd who co-curated the Rock & Roll Public Library at Norwich and has been involved with the project from the start, created a superb series of drawings during the CHELSEA space exhibition which we published as the Tales From The Rock & Roll Public Library. He also made a second book for the show at Vintage Goodwood. CHELSEA space is grateful to Crispin for use of the photographs of the Kensal Rise Library protests in this blog

Mick Jones takes to the streets

Mick Jones - like our libraries - a national treasure

Rock & Roll Public Librarians - Chris Salewicz, Jane Ashley, and Gordon McHarg

Know Your Rights - Mick Jones in public protester mode