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December 27, 2008
A New Year Appeal
This call is an intent to make major steps forward.
To CILIP, the MLA, the LGA, BIC, to the Society of Chief Librarians and the ACL, to IdeA and the Audit Commission, to individual councils, to the Ministers and civil servants in the DCMS, if they wish, to Unison, if they want-- to MP's and to political parties, to Alan Gibbons and his friends, to authors anywhere, to their agents and to publishers and suppliers of all kinds, to librarians and to library staff, to councillors, cabinet members and council officers with a connection to libraries, to teachers, to schoolchildren and students and scholars of any age, to the Reading Agency, the National Literacy Trust; to readers, to LLL and all user groups and campaigns, to trade associations or library consortia, to those many journalists and their newspapers and those editors and proprietors who really care about this subject-- let us unite in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland- or anywhere else-, work together and make ourselves available to any council that asks for help.
If a council is struggling with its budgets, seriously has to consider closures or cutbacks, or cannot find sufficient money for its book fund- and asks for help, through councillors, through officers, through librarians or through local people, organised or not , then let us, together, help them. Perhaps if they know there is someone that will help them, they will ask and not be embarrassed to do so.
Who will join me? I am not asking for money - but for an agreement to share purpose and vision, to bury pride and to give commitment that will seek and make improvement.
Posted by Perkins at December 27, 2008 7:24 PM
Comments
In a letter in August 1997, Ted Hughes wrote, "There's been a catastrophic quiet destruction of the libraries throughout Britain that few people seem to know about".
Readers themselves knew about it, and, with declining stocks, dropped away. As the situation further worsened, they have become rather more vocal.
The loss of books has created a social divide between those able to get hold of them and those who cannot. There are now signs, however, that librarians are taking a stand against the bureaucrats.
Also in the Ted Hughes Letters is a splendid one in which he tells his daughter about the way to set about exploring the background to Antony and Cleopatra. Whether she would find Plutarch's Lives in a library now is another matter.
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at December 28, 2008 10:01 AM
Christopher is right. Out of 53 libraries in Hampshire, only 4 have Plutarch on the shelves. The rest of Hampshire's copies are languishing in the County Store where no potential borrower can simply stumble on them and discover a treasure. One move that Hampshire might consider is moving books out of the store and onto the shelves (Gosport Discovery Centre, for example), has acres of space for more books and, incidentally, no copy of Plutarch). It's not good enough to say that the public can order books - this is fine for those who already know what they want to read. It's no good for those who don't, yet who might through serendipity, discover a book on the shelves that opens up a whole new world for them. Isn't that, after all, supposed to be one of the joys of libraries?
Posted by: amanda Field at December 29, 2008 8:42 AM
I think I am already enjoined, but hope the general spinelessness of local councils (which I have experienced) does not mean this call to arms will fall on deaf ears and closed minds. I would rather we marched on London and mooned in front of CILIP but I do still love books, and I do agree with a CILIP article that warns Britain is facing an information management crisis. It would be nice to hook up with someone else out there who still has passion combined with a practical desire to stock the shelves and sort the systems. As for the rest of 'em, may they be flushed out of the USS Enterprise's shuttlebay in their underpants and/or left without water in Sierra Leone!
Posted by: James Christie at December 30, 2008 4:03 PM
James. You are most certainly enjoined, but even more, someone is listening: there are senior folk at CILIP who would like to make contact with you. If you give me your email address I shall pass it on carefully. (tim.coates@yahoo.com)
Posted by: Tim at December 30, 2008 5:46 PM
Dear Tim, I'll email you once I get back to the flat 5th January. Off home to see my 80-year-old mother who is presently suffering the downgrading of her mobile library service from weekly to fortnightly (South Lanarkshire Council receives the award of The Golden Raspberry for that), and to see what constructive suggestions I can make to CILIP. A ban on jargon (may the word metadata and the concept of revalidation burn in hell for all eternity!) and a public statement that they like books and no question about it might be a start!
Posted by: James Christie at December 31, 2008 10:25 AM