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April 10, 2008
Birmingham City Council should spend 20 million pounds on new books
The answer to the question posed below is that Birmingham City Council should spend 20 million pounds out of the 193 million it proposes to spend, of taxpayers' money, on new books for the new library. The track record of the council in keeping up to date with sufficient copies of new publications has been among the worst in the country. There is a substantial demand for literature in many languages. The amount needed is likely to be at least 20 million pounds.
The people of Birmingham should ask to see the budget for the new project to make sure this amount is shown clearly in the figures. I am pretty certain that in the whole discussion about whether or not to build this library and how to choose the architect and manage the programme, there has never been any discussion whatsoever about the current quality of the book collections and what would be needed to make them excellent. That work, too, requires a skilled architect, but of a different kind.
Posted by Perkins at April 10, 2008 8:46 PM
Comments
I wonder if this is the same new library project that was being talked about at library conferences 4 or 5 years ago but sadly never got off the ground.
I hope they succeed this time - Birmingham Central is in real need of replacement.
Posted by: Paige Turner at April 17, 2008 10:57 AM