The Good Library Blog

Encyclopaedias typically, I noted our Which? magazines have recently gone over to electronic only form.

I wonder how much of this is a self fulfilling prophecy

If 1000 libraries don't have subscriptions then a publisher's market becomes very different. Is this is in response to demand changing?

I do believe that in the case of more serious fiction and non fiction the long drawn out decline of library purchasing has had a major effect on what is being published.

There is much more to published works of reference than the information they contain-- as a visit to the lost Newington Reference Library would have shown (if it were still there)

I am often accused (wrongly, I think) of seeing libraries as book shops. But I do know that one of the services a library can offer that a book shop cannot is a really good collection of substantial works of reference (especially Encyclopedias!) . Book shops rarely can sell such things, so they don't stock them. That is exactly what a library is for. non?

A cheery librarian told me the other day that in his library now puts such reference books as it has among non - fiction. 'People find it confusing, but it is the recommmended way these days' -- oh really, recommended by whom?

Here is Hove we fought something of a rearguard action in defending reference libraries - and Bob Dylan, no less, came to our help.

That is, in a letter to the local paper I quoted the long and eloquent section from his memoir Chronicles in which he describes looking through Civil War newspapers and becoming steeped in the atmosphere for his work. He relishes reference libraries.

What's more, reference librarians are au fait with all the directories and other material which can steer the casual enquirer in the right direction. Their skills should not be diluted among general library staff any more than key works should be hidden, even mis-shelved among the lending stock. A reference librarian with everything to hand is, and always has been, the very emblem of the "social inclusivity" one keeps hearing about - as happy to help Bob Dylan as somebody looking up job possibilities.

Hi Tim and posters,

The Wanstead and Woodford Guardian seems rather to 'have it in' for Redbridge Libraries recently, and we're not sure why.

A complaint from a reader - to the newspaper, not to the library service - triggered their initial 'investigation'. A member of staff recently removed some less well used stock and this has been interpreted as a downgrading of service.

The reader who wished to use a reference item that had recently been removed was pointed in the direction of the online resources that the library service subscribes to - those published by the usual sources, Oxford, Grove etc. The Library Service is not itself 'putting books online'.

All responses given to the press when they query these things are pretty clear, but doesn't make as good a story I guess! We were also very annoyed by the gentleman stating that you had to pay for internet access, when this is free of charge.

Of course, you can't please all of the people all of the time. The library in this area continues to try and balance the needs of all it's users.

Best wishes,
Redbridge Libraries