JUST BOOKS - Looking for a new home

national | miscellaneous | press release Monday July 11, 2005 13:57 by Rebel - Organise!

From the pages of Working Class Resistance, 16 page magazine of Organise!, now available in text and PDF formats at our website

Belfast Anarchist Collective
Just Books was an Anarchist 'bookshop' that was opened by the Belfast Anarchist Collective back in June 1978.

Just Books was more than just a bookshop however, the
premises included a cafe and print workshop and
provided a focal point for the collectives many
activities until it closed shop sixteen years later in
June 1994.
Set up without any form of state subsidy or grant
money was raised through running benefits and from
interest free loans and donations from supporters.
The bookshop, which became a feminist collective from
the mid-eighties until it became a mixed gender
collective again in the early nineties, was always run
on a self managed basis with collective decision
making at its core.
The bookshop was located in Winetavern Street in the
Smithfield area;
“The location of the bookshop in the old Smithfield
Market area of Belfast, at the bottom of the Shankill
Road and the Falls Road, was important to the
anarchists who set up Just Books in that they wished
the building to be accessible to people from all
communities”1.
Resource
When the building first opened to become a centre for
Anarchist ideas and activity – in its time building
had included a short-lived library, the Print
Workshop, a meeting and exhibition space, the Hideout
Café, Belfast Independent Video, Belfast Unemployed
Group and Women's News office.
The BAC also printed a monthly paper, Outta Control,
later joined by Gaining Ground an Anarcha-Feminist
publication independently produced by women and
distributed with Outta Control. Ainriail was also
produced and copies of Organise! and Workers
Solidarity, among numerous other publications, rolled
off the Print Workshops presses in the early eighties.
A Prisoners Book Scheme ran from the earliest days of
Just Books right up until it closed. Books were
available to prisoners at one third off and books
banned by the prison authorities were cannily
recovered to ensure they got past the screws.
Celebrating 16 Years
A victim of the general decline of the Smithfield area
following the 1986 development of Castlecourt, a more
general squeeze on radical booksellers brought about
by recession, increased book prices and growing
competition from bigger outlets Just Books closed its
doors proclaiming that “16 years of providing an
invaluable service to the community and being a focus
for social change and revolutionary ideas is something
to celebrate.”2
The Just Books collective disappeared for a while
after that but we hadn’t really gone away you know.
In recent years we have provided book stalls at the
Belfast May Day celebrations at St. George's Market,
at numerous Grassroots Gatherings and at other events.
Our third catalogue is currently being compiled.
Towards a New Premises
Just Books are working towards opening a new centre in
Belfast. We are aiming to have things up and running
in time to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning
of the Spanish Revolution - July 2006. To do this we
need some active Solidarity.
Again we want to make Just Books more than just a
bookshop. We envisage a Solidarity centre in Belfast
that incorporates accessible resources and information
for Workers in struggle - in a premises providing a
multi-lingual resource library, a bookshop, meeting
space, internet access and a coffee shop. Ideally we
would also like to include a print workshop and a
projector for showing films. These are possibilities -
we are asking for your support in order to achieve
them.

References

1) Elaine, Just Books 10th Birthday. Women’s News.
Sometime in 1988.
2) Just Books Spokesperson, Market to close if
shoppers don’t return. Bookshop goes under as
Smithfield crisis deepens. Anderstonstown News,
04/06/94.
JUST BOOKS NEEDS SOME ACTIVE Solidarity

At the minute this is how you can help:

* Donate books to our multi-lingual resource library
(hundreds of titles have already been collected).
* Buy a tee-shirt, printed by Organise! to raise funds
for Just Books. The design is a wild cat (you all know
the one) with Solidarity is Strength in text. Red ink
on black shirt or black ink on red. These are
available for £8.00 or 12.00 Euro, plus a couple of
quid postage from the Just Books email address.
* Buy a copy of ‘A Wee Black Booke of Belfast
Anarchism’, by Mairtin O'Cathain, for £2.50 or 3.75
Euro and printed by Organise!. Again all the money
raised from sales of this pamphlet will go to Just
Books.
* Come to one our fund raising events… details to
follow as they are confirmed.
* Put on a fundraising event for us.
If you are in Ireland request Just Books collective
stalls at your events.
* Seen us a donation.


We need to raise several thousand pounds, the more we raise the more ambitious this project can become.


In Solidarity;

Jason for the Just Books Collective