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December 1, 2006
"Children in Hertfordshire these days would rather play on a gameboy than read a book"
So says the Councillor in Hertfordshire responsible for their public libraries
This report has just come from the campaigners in Hertfordshire who have so desperately tried to save their libraries from closure:
"So the dye is cast.
In spite of a unquestionably successful summer trial in which the two threatened St Albans' libraries met all the targets set them, the move is to close both.
Set against a dismal 2% decline in overall library visits in the county, Fleetville and Cunningham recorded a 42% and 64% increase in visits respectively. The trial cost the taxpayer at least £20K yet it was summarily dismissed in yesterday's HCC Culture Panel meeting as irrelevant. The decision was based on a mistaken view that demand - in a concentrated geographical area - is 'over-provision'. It is simply unacceptable, they argued, to have three libraries so close together.
The savings to be made are small-fry. They will go no way towards transforming the library service for other users. And, once additional hours have been allocated to other libraries to absorb the impact of the closures, the net financial benefit is negligible.
Meanwhile, in spite of dismal year-on-year performance (everywhere except St Albans were visits were up 10%) and four library closures, no redundancies will take place. Indeed no internal operational changes are reported. For someone who has worked in the commercial sector this is staggering. When market conditions were tough and budgets under pressure we would have reined in payroll and targeted central costs to meet the shortfall. We would not have closed a bookshop.
One of the councillors yesterday spoke candidly of these closures as the first of many. 'We have to accept that people do not want to visit libraries', she said. 'Children these days would rather play on their gameboy than read a book'. This is someone entrusted with the future of cultural services in the county.
Plans presented to us to address the worrying decline in library use are unconvincing. New carpets, counters and the odd extra hour in the evening will not reverse the trend. And ironically St Albans is one of the few beacons of hope in the library network. People here really do love their libraries. Yet rather than viewing it as the model to be emulated across the county, it is being condemned as the exception and two of its libraries - including the county's most successful Band 4, Fleetville - are set to close. "
Posted by Perkins at December 1, 2006 3:05 PM
Comments
'Children in Hertfordshire would rather play on a gameboy..'.. so I presume sales of Harry Potter are zero in that county.
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at December 1, 2006 6:05 PM
The author of the piece from Hertfordshire is well qualified to say what she does. Until recently, when family commitments dictated otherwise, she was international marketing director of Borders. She was also taught her bookselling skills by John Monk, which is rather like a cellist saying he was taught by Rostropovich. The council staff including John Harrison, who is the director responsible for this nonsense and the councillors who clearly need a brain change, are not worthy to drink from her shoes.
Posted by: tim at December 1, 2006 10:45 PM