THE Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School recently received enquiries from both BBC Radio 4 and the Wall Street Journal. Both wanted to know whether Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour Party leader had triggered new interest in the ideas of Karl Marx.

It’s a good question. Marx House has indeed seen significant and continuing growth in public interest in recent months, although the greatest spur to understanding Marx’s ideas remains the continuing economic slump — a consequence of the 2007-8 global financial crisis.

For staff, trustees and our burgeoning roster of heroic volunteers at Marx Library, this has meant a welcome increase in activity, often stretching our human and material resources to the limit.

On May 1 this year we opened our doors to the labour movement in London on May Day and in September we participated in Open House London for the second year running.

These events brought 1,000 people through our doors to see some of the unique collection of banners, poster art, publications and artefacts in the historic home of radicalism, socialism and internationalism at the house, located in Clerkenwell Green.

Demand at these open house events prompted the launch of our programme of public tours. Every Tuesday and Thursday from 1pm guides take visitors through the history of Marx House and the contributions made by former occupants including William Morris, Eleanor Marx and Lenin.

Most encouragingly we have been able to welcome increasing numbers of visits from school students and teachers keen to discover and teach a new generation about our history. Monthly workshops engaging students in original source material documenting centuries of grassroots struggle now take place.

On November 12, in partnership with Rebel Footprints (Pluto, 2015) author David Rosenberg, we will be conducting our first combined radical tour of Clerkenwell. This will take in many sites of Chartist, Fenian and early trade union gatherings that bequeath a rich revolutionary history to the area.

Our education program now encompasses classes for trade unionists on austerity and the British economy and online study on capitalism, crisis and democracy, looking at the development of monopoly and imperialism.

Marx Library also ran public lectures throughout the year. In July, Paula Bartley lectured on her book Ellen Wilkinson: From Red Suffragist to Government Minister (Pluto, 2014).

In August Rachel Holmes spoke on the subject of her biography, Eleanor Marx: A Life (Bloomsbury, 2014), and unveiled a magnificently restored 1890 poster for a commemoration of the Paris Commune addressed by Morris, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling.

At our members’ request we continue to explore debates about Marxism and contemporary scientific method. In October a packed meeting hall heard Professor John Foster on Lev Vygotsky, founder of the Soviet school of psychology and his relevance to working-class struggle, using Cinema Action film of the 1971 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ work-in.

In November we will begin lectures on the theme of historical memory, looking at continuing controversy in Spain over commemoration of Franco’s victims in the Spanish civil war.

Professor Helen Graham from Royal Holloway University will join me and Geoff Martin, who researches and blogs on

Francoist repression and republican resistance in the Costa Blanca.

The same series includes talks on the Chinese cultural revolution from Eric Gordon, on how we remember the 1945 victory over fascism from Dr Michael Jones, and a discussion led by Zobaida Nasreen on state violence against tribal peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh.

As a consequence of the library’s increased public profile we attract significant new acquisitions, including recent donations of letters from Trinidadian communist and Notting Hill carnival founder Claudia Jones; additional papers and artwork of artist Gertrude Elias, who arrived in London as a Jewish refugee from Austria in the 1930s; and the archives of British International Brigader Len Crome.

We now deploy teams of volunteers working on uncatalogued archives, such as our unparalleled poster and photography library, to make our collections available to new audiences.

New initiatives generate wider interest in Marxism and result in increasing numbers of people using Marx Library. But new visitors and new generations also demand clear and inclusive presentation.

For this reason I have recently appealed for funds to assist the Marx Memorial Library with improved display and signage.

Morning Star readers can contribute to our work by donating here. Funds raised will provide new welcome panels in the reception area of the library explaining who we are and what we do.

I also invite Morning Star readers to support our success and contribute to permanent displays celebrating great figures of our history. Further details are available here.

We will also install new display cases, ensuring visitors attending education events can view temporary displays from our collections that are stored and protected to professional standards.

Our trustees were delighted to receive artist Fionn Wilson’s donation of her oil portrait of the late, great trade unionist Bob Crow, a long-standing member and supporter of the library. Fionn’s portrait will be unveiled in our main hall at a public event to remember Crow’s contribution to the working-class movement.

• More information on the library and its events can be found at marx library.