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December 23, 2007
Just a small black cat
2007 was the year in which I, Perkins, just a small black library cat, took over this blog. Some other cats joined in- mainly James from Hove.
Otherwise not much progress has been made. Lots of people went and some more people came. Lots of books went from libraries and only a few came back. The Government stopped publishing statistics that could be used against them.
It has been a year of events that made no difference and actions that brought no change:-
- Chris Batt retired early in from being ceo of the MLA. There could have been many reasons. Mark Wood will shortly follow.
- "Better Stock Better Libraries" drew another load of taxpayers money and died
- "Blueprint for the future" flopped
- "More or less library standards" disappeared
- "Impact measures" sunk
- 'Framework for the Future" died and so did any attempt to follow it
- "Love Libraries" gave up trying and evaporated.
- The MLA, itself, was shredded and sent to Birmingham
- The ACL failed (to do anything!)
- The SCL gave up.
- The Department of culture confused the Olympic Games with public libraries.
- David Lammy went and was replaced to no avail by Margaret Hodge
- 135 libraries closed
- Her Majesty's Conservative opposition lost interest in libraries.
- The scrutiny committee on libraries in Hampshire went into its third year without saying anything. So did their equivalent in Lambeth and the one in Lancashire and doubltess many others.
- Nobody understood what the Audit Commission meant;
- The department of local government went silent.
- Yinnon Ezra questioned the need for Fiction in libraries
- Book stocks in public libraries and the purchasing of them fell again
- Book Lending fell.
- The Publishers Association lost interest
- The Liberal Democrats never had any interest.
- The LLDA was closed down several times (by this blog!)
- The Smith Institute initiative was prevented from doing anything by the MLA
- CILIP became SYRUP.
- CILIP annual conference voted to end the profession in public libraries-
- The MLA board sunk and was replaced by an admiral in a rowing boat- to no effect.
Very sadly Katherine Rushton left the Bookseller and much worse, Philip Pettifor died of cancer in February.
The only good things were the emergence of John Whelan from Lambeth and Henry Higgins in Hillingdon- and the programme for Hillingdon libraries they have started; and a cat taking over this blog.
Merry Christmas: the Turkey is in the Fridge and everyone is asleep. I shall just curl up and have a rest now. Your obedient servant, Perkins.
Posted by Perkins at December 23, 2007 10:31 AM