A fundraising campaign has raised more than £120,000 to help repair a Liverpool library and community hub that suffered severe fire damage after being targeted by rioters on Saturday night.

Nigella Lawson and children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce are among those who have donated to the gofundme page, which was set up on Sunday afternoon in aid of Spellow Hub library.

The fundraising page had an initial target of £500 but has gone on to raise more than £120,000 in two days, from more than 6,000 donations.

The appeal was started by Alex McCormick, a 27-year-old manicurist. “I always loved to read as a child and seeing a library and community space destroyed broke my heart,” she told the Guardian. “I felt helpless and wanted to do something to help and thought fundraising would be a nice way to replace some of the books lost in the fire”.

“I never imagined that the fundraiser would spread and far and wide as it has,” said McCormick, who is now liaising with the council and library management. “I’m so overwhelmed with the response and the sense of community”.

Spellow Hub is located on County Road, Walton, where Merseyside Police said approximately 300 people were involved in violent disorder on Saturday night. The riot was among a number of incidences of violence that have taken place in cities and towns in England, and in Belfast in Northern Ireland, over the last week in the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for 13 years. Police have made 378 arrests since the killing of three young girls in Southport in north-west England last Monday, after which false claims were spread online that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker.

Police said when firefighters arrived at the library, the rioters attempted to stop them from getting to the fire to put it out. “They even threw a missile at the fire engine and broke the rear window of the cab”, said police in a statement. The library has suffered severe fire damage to its ground floor.

Brothers Adam Wharton, 28, and Ellis Wharton, 22, pleaded guilty to charges of burgling the library at Liverpool magistrates’ court on Monday. Ellis also pleaded not guilty to charges of assault on an emergency worker.

Formerly known as Spellow library, Spellow Hub re-opened as a community hub last year, after a “radical, community-led makeover” intended to offer training and opportunities to one of the most deprived communities in the country.

Ed Jewell, the president of Libraries Connected – which represents library services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – said it was “absolutely sickening” to see the library riot. “Public libraries are particularly vulnerable during this kind of disorder as they are often in prominent locations and are, rightly, easily accessible. Yet they are also symbolic of community safety and cohesion – open and free civic spaces where everyone is welcome.”