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July 22, 2006
Wise friends of libraries
The BBC filmed a threatened library in Hertfordshire yesterday for a news item on BBC "Look East" on Monday morning.
I asked the journalist why the campaigns to save libraries have attracted the press so much. She said "Because the local people who campaign are articulate and understand the subject better than the councils or the civil servants"
As if to bear that out my good dear and long suffering friends of the "Save the Carnegie" library group in Herne Hill sent me a copy of a letter to their new Councillor in Lambeth. Readers of this blog know that you can hardly get worse libraries than in Lambeth.
Here the Friends Group have realised for some time that the Government "Public Library Service standard number 10" which is intended to encourage the renewal of collections of books is actually taken by librarians as a reason to throw away their valuable back list. They constantly draw this to the attention to everybody from the Minister, their own MP (who is Tessa Jowell and therefore responsible) and all the appropriate officials. Despite being absolutely correct in their analysis of an extremely serious problem everyone patronises or ignores them, which is outrageous.
Nevertheless the group are diligently polite and straightforward when they write : "the people of Herne Hill have had to watch the number of books decline to one quarter of a book per person. We ask that the book fund be restored to its level of 1906 of one and a half books which is the level prescribed by the secretary of state, our own MP! (They intend extensive celebrations of their centenary and a few books would help).
The attached petition, which hundreds have already signed, calling for this increase also begs that a wise selection be made so that the books do not have to be discarded after only a few years."
The council responded by cutting the book fund.
Posted by Tim Coates at July 22, 2006 9:36 AM