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November 20, 2006
Love Libraries
There is a champagne reception in London today to celebrate the achievements of the Love Libraries campaign.
People asked why I criticised a programme which clearly improved 3 libraries and here is the answer: this was an opportunity to address the structural financial problems of three councils and no such attempt was made.
You can see that because, for example, in Richmond one of the most valuable buildings in England, the cottage on Richmond Green next to the library, is still being used as a warehouse for unpacking boxes of books and cataloguing stock that has already been catalogued by suppliers. A large portion of the money in each individual library service is wasted in this way. If those problems were solved there would be sufficient money to renovate 3,000 buildings rather than the three that were part of the Love Libraries programme.
The project brought together exactly the people who are in a position to understand and tackle these matters: The Minister, the DCMS, theMLA, the Reading Agency, The SCL, and senior members of three councils, together with a group of the largest publishers - and they decided deliberately and consciously not to put the heart of the matter on ther agenda. That's why I criticised the Love Libraries campaign. It was, I said, like taking a small child from the slums and bathing him and putting him in a suit in front of the TV cameras and claiming you had solved resolved the problems of child poverty.
Around the country there are many senior librarians scratching their heads wondering how to make sense of this year's very difficult budget conundrum-- made worse incidentally by the decline in dependable revenue from DVD rental-- who would have preferred answers to these questions to yet another day trip to London to listen to the Minister talk about the excitement of his first encounter with a photocopying machine, again.
PS - It won't surprise anyone that I haven't been invited to this thing, but I am curious to know what gets said, so if anyone would care to leak a report of the proceedings I shall print them here. tim.coates@yahoo.com
Posted by Tim Coates at November 20, 2006 8:37 AM
Comments
Couldn't agree more. Licks of paint to three libraries hardly addresses the problems. Nor do the related Top Ten Libraries and Librarians Campaign - "promoted?" by the Society of Chief Librarians. In the past 8 months they have succeeded in finding the Ten Young LIbrariansz for the Future. But on the question of Top Ten Libraries - silence.
The SCL says "We want to tell the world about all the great and exciting things libraries are already doing - and that’s why we’re launching a search for England’s Top Ten Libraries"
Well D- for efforts so far, SCL. Surely there must have been ten nominations. Perhaps the winners will be announced when the champagne flows at the reception Tim has not been invited to? Perhaps nothing meets SCL's exacting standards? Too many books and not enough Tai Chi?
Posted by: Elgar Atkins at November 20, 2006 11:16 AM
Elgar
It may be of course that the top ten libraries are the ten that survive the 2007/2008 budget round!
Phil
Posted by: Philip Kerridge at November 20, 2006 5:42 PM
Tim, I joined the Holborn Library today, so for the first time in over 15 years I have a UK library card and can get a sense of things for myself while I am here. It was great to get some leisure reading and some reference material I need for a new book project. My impression of the library? The fellow who sorted out my ticket, a "library assistant" according to his badge, was extremely pleasant and helpful. There were people huddled around every available computer, and few browsing the books. There is a lot of floor space and relatively few books, considering the space available. What was most striking was the sad dull signage--that's something it would be easy and cheap to do something about. The library apparently has shorter hours than any in Camden, and there's a users group I can join. Your American correspondent, Karen.
Posted by: Karen Christensen at November 20, 2006 9:06 PM
Karen
You can join the rightly famous "Camden Public Library Users Group (CPLUG)" and with that comes membership of LLL (Libraries for life for London) a wonderful group about which I have written here with great reverence.
Shame about the Holborn public library: you make my point that the public libraries of central London are an essential resource for people from all over the world who come here for a million reasons to study. As you know you are staying in a district which is full of students of all kinds, from nursing to necromancy. Great Ormond Street is round the corner, as are Faber and Faber. Lincoln's inn and the chambers of the best and most expensive barristers in England are literally across the street. This is Dickens country. People in the London Borough of Camden pay more for their public library service than almost anywhere in the World (over £160pa for a family of 4) - and yet, as you say-- the library is a dirty old dump, rarely open with precious few books in it. But those are my words, not yours. You met a very agreeable young man called a library assistant who was very helpful. That's good.
Posted by: tim at November 21, 2006 9:48 AM