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August 3, 2006
Public Libraries in London
According to MORI polling if you ask people around the country if they are satisfied with the public library service about 65% say Yes. This poll includes people who do and don't use the service rather as one would ask "Do you think your local school provides a reasonable education?"- most people have a view even if they don't actually still use the school. Part of their answer is based on a general feel for the importance of the service. For public libraries the figure for the number of those satisfied is gradually declining.
In London, however, in 2001 Mori found just 29% satisfied with public libraries and by 2003 that figure had fallen to 20%.
The public library service in London has virtually collapsed. It costs £230m each year; less than 5% of the funds are spent on books. London is the great Student and Learning Centre of the World- which shows the extent of the need for public libraries. The service is operated individually separately and expensively by each of the 32 London Boroughs
I call upon all those councils in which book lending has fallen in the past 3 years to dismiss the Head of Libraries and Information Service in their Borough and urgently (within 3 months) to create one Library management for London.
They should at the same time withdraw funding and support for the "London Libraries Development Agency" and the London Branch of the MLA. They have both proved utterly useless.
Posted by Perkins at August 3, 2006 11:08 AM
Comments
so what do these illustrious bodies actually DO all day ?
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at August 3, 2006 1:35 PM
I think the disease that has been affecting the rest of the country has finally touched London.
My local library, I'm sad to say, is a dreary place, stuck somewhere in the last century. I think they operate on the premise of one new book, per town, per year!
Very, very sad, considering the time I spent in the library as a child - what is going wrong?
Posted by: Minx at August 4, 2006 7:36 AM
I have given up with the central library in town. I tried working there once but it was impossible. There was far too much noise people just sitting there talking loudly, some of them without even a newspaper in front of them. There was no attempt by anyone to hush them.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons that the British Library is now so dreadfully crowded.
Posted by: Clare at August 4, 2006 9:23 AM