The Good Library Blog

PLR is not paid irrespective of borrowings or purchases.. it is based on a sampling from selected libraries on a rolling basis of actual borrowings.. every year I get my PLR statement with the exact number of BORROWINGS of each title - from the selected libraries which are a good cross section of library sizesm areas and types. Where did anyone get the idea that it is based on anything else ? How could it be ?

Susan

sorry- I misexplained myself: the total sum of money that is paid out through PLR is not dependent on the number of library loans.

in the twenty years since PLR was launched, lending of library books has fallen to below half the level it was at originally. However the funds made available by Government for giving out through PLR has increased quite substantially. That is what I meant when I said they are not connected and that authors would not be aware of the dramatic decline in overall library use from their PLR returns. tim

When PLR started book loans were about 650m per annum, now they are about 250m per annum and falling at the rate of about 14m each year. Nothing in your PLR return will draw your attention to that. Am I wrong?

Don't despair, Tim. There is a real high-tech fightback beginning against those faux-tech anti-book politicos.

The internet is now being used to promote books throught the hosting of multimedia book-trailers. This is a genre that the MLA and the other anti-book bureaucrats did not expect.

Here is just one example, from a popular music website :

http://www.myspace.com/eustonworms

It is ironic that the council advocate on municipal book-burning should be himself named after a book of the Bible. Perhaps, as a non-reader responsible for "culture" he is unaware of this?

Or maybe it is, that being a "modernist", who is systematically dismantling the educational and cultural aspirations of the younger generation, his title refers to his responsibility for "gun culture".

Even prisons, which have illiteracy rates as high as 70%, still have libraries. Exactly what kind of culture does Yinnon Ezra represent?

libraries are due for an overhaul. ever visited london recently? ideas stores? have you seen how culture is being represented on all fronts? the whitechapel project? the tate modern? my point being that it has just been allowed to carry on for a longer period in hampshire because of no one being brave enough to take the reins. now the tate modern. that was a problem when it arrived. to be honest, im a hampshire resident, a young person, ive NEVER been in a library. i have no reason to when everything is so spread out. it takes me 20-30 minutes to come to winchester. if you take a look at what cultures have to be represented in hampshire, there are not really that many pockets of communities, the communities are able to cross boundaries and represent multiculturally. take andover for example. if there is any culture he represents its young people. so if your a professional librarian, working in the SERVICE sector i recommend you go and update your skills, just as waitrose would, or any other company and teach these skills to a young person. i know i dont know much, but i know a good whiner when i see one.

Not surprised to read this. Ezra and Ward ruined the Kent Library service. (I know because I worked in it.) Now they are setting about the Hampshire service too. Ezra has a chip on his shoulder about librarians. Ward is just intellectually challenged. Still, what can you expect from (1) a wide boy whose only concern is to market himself, and (2) the product of a secondary modern school. As someone from East Sussex said when Ward left there for Kent: "Your loss is our gain."

I worked in Kent Libraries too and dont recognise Davids picture - I worked with him too and remember the support the service gave him in his hour of need.Ward and Ezra for many year tried to protect the service from Kent Councillors.Some years they lost.The Library service has to change

I too worked in Kent libraries.On his appointment, Mr Ezra inherited a structure not of his own choosing, after a particularly nasty review. The council's view of the library service at that time was that it was semi-detached from the County Council and was arrogant.Things needed to change.If Mr Ezra did have a chip on his shoulder it was about library assistants and other staff being referred to as "non-professionals".He felt that was demotivating.How could you describe someone as a "non" something ?

Just how do you cope with an administration in which the majority party views libraries and culture as an unnecessary luxury when grappling with issues like child abuse ? When the administration changed, one of the parties in the new coaltion viewed libraries as elitist.Both Mr Ezra and Mr Ward, amongst others, did their level best to protect the arts, libraries and museums service.

Whatever redundancies there are in Hampshire, I am sure that they will be dealt with sensitively, if my experience, and that of my colleagues in Kent was anything to go by. How many other Chief Officers would have arranged for all his staff on management grades, whose positions were under threat,to see a management consultancy firm to help sort out their future and start this process well in advance of any decisios being taken.Some colleagues in Education were told they could take voluntary redundancy, made plans on that basis and were told weeks before they were due to go "all bets were off"

The current position in Kent is much the same as Hampshire There is currently a review in progress which is reducing about 80 posts to 40. Mostly professional.Poor RSG, reductions in budgets etc. So whatever is happening in Hampshire is not the result of the vindictive machinations or career aspirations of two people.

Yinnon Ezra says "People these days want
longer hours and want to do their own research on the internet. You don't need librarians to help people with that." Er, yes you do actually. I have worked as a library assistant for years and a LOT of people need help with the computers. as well as the hardware side of things, dealing with the inevitable breakdowns etc, some people don't speak English and need a website translated for them, older people are not very confident and need help even accessing the library catalogue, children need supervision, people wanting help with their CVs and jobsearching, dealing with the booking system, printouts...need I go on? This man is evidently VERY badly informed and ignorant and has never set foot in a library, and has no idea what his staff's jobs entail. People will always need librarians to help them find the information they need, whether the information is in a book or online.