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October 2, 2008
Camden New Journal prints more letters about libraries
This week's paper contains most of another page of letters objecting to the plan to turn public libraries into fish and chip shops.
This brings forth a word about the London Libraries Development Agency (the LLDA). This was a quango invented in London about 5 years ago which was a waste of money from the day it started. Public libraries in London, in general, have become irrelevant to two generations. Only a few boroughs out of the 32, have begun now to address all the reasons why this is true.
The LLDA, latterly under the direction of Michael Clarke, Lynn Brown MP and then Councillor Flick Rae, failed utterly to diagnose problems, admit that there were issues and then deal with them. Of all the many wastages of money and effort by this government over the last ten years in the field of public libraries, this was one of the obvious ones. It had no policy, no purpose and no direction. It achieved little except considerable expenditure of public funds.
Minutes of the meetings of the Society of Chief Librarians (see below) reveal that quietly without admission, this public body has been allowed to fade away.
However residents of Camden learn to their horror that Councillor Rae has had the nerve to appoint Michael Clarke as head of the library service in Camden. One wonders if this is legal, but as these letters show, it is certainly a disaster.
And, by the way, if anyone deserves an honour for their work on public libraries, it is not any Chief Librarian (see below) , but it is Alan Templeton, the author of the first letter in this week's set.
Posted by Perkins at October 2, 2008 9:33 PM