The Good Library Blog

The future is Orange?, Blue maybe, No it's Grey!!

What an amazingly disappointing load of grey drivel from Ed V. I was full of hope that maybe, just maybe, he really was serious about the sector and had some good ideas and some energy.(he does do a fairly good cultural blog, but no doubt he doesn't write or read it). Instead it seemd like a rag week interview full of noises off and giggles, the interviewer over impressed by being in Portcullis House etc, and nothing at all to feel enthused about.

Yes he liked Roy Clare, and yes he used the libray because he had kids, and there was a nice old building somewhere and coffee is Ok in a library, very insightful! Mind you his recent conference or workshop was dull, but you get what you want depending on who you ask. Surely to God he must have some vision for the sector apart from shoving libraries into any old governement department, larger than DCMS so it would be even more swamped! Let's face it, I think we have had it with regards to public libraries. All this utter nonsense re the Olympics, it is so so sad, so irrelevant. All the money wasted on regional Cultural Consortia (doomed from the start to fail), regional MLAs; what was the total spend and the spend on closing them (also doomed from the start)?., The only good idea that Lynne Brown stole recently was that of a National Development Agency, suggested years ago by Charlie Leadbeater, who gave the sector 10 years to change, and what has happened? Zilch!The egg timer is running out!

We must face reality, public libraries should go back to basics (as should M&S), know their market and their customer and stock, what they want, books, space, and a place to be. I overheard a conversation between 2 lower middle class women recently, on a train. They were talking about their local county libray headquarters, (I deduced Preston in Lancashire), bemoaning the fact that on their last visit they could hardly find a book, "all CDs and DVDs, Whats happening to libraries?", they said in disgust.

So the future isnt really any colour, there isnt one as I see no hope, no real leadership, no dramatic change, no chance really, and those who should be listening and learning are a) not reading this blog b) listening to the wrong people (those who say what the listener, be it Ed or Roy or whoever, want to hear) and c) no one is learning!

Credit crunch, this is a library crunch!

After all the Libraries upset during the previous administration in Hove and Brighton - when Hove residents battled so long to save their Library - the new, minority Conservative administration, with Councillor David Smith as "lead councillor" for Culture, has not made any strong stand to put an increased book stock at the centre of its "library strategy". Any increase in books has been met by a cut in the magazines and by no longer having CDs in most branch libraries (lack of security meant that too many were stolen to make continued stock worthwhile).

Residents continue to hope for more books and longer opening hours.

The women in Lancashire - post above - are absolutely right. It is what everybody is saying. There is a great appetite for books out there. People simply want to get on with reading as reading, not turn it into a spectator sport.