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June 27, 2009
Beggar man, poor man, rich man, thief
Congratulations to Alan Gibbons today for his organisation of a conference in support of his 'campaign for the book' . In the past year he has drawn attention to the issues and the problems of the decline of the use of books in libraries and schools. It has been a tremendous success. He needs us all and we need him very much.
I am sorry that circumstances prevented me from being there, but his conference of those of us who fight for these things made me reflect on the people whom I have met who get called 'campaigners' for libraries. They are not rich people and generally they are not famous or celebrities. Quite often, to be honest, they are rather quiet, private people, many of whom are at a stage where they are caring for relatives and being careful with money. They take an intelligent interest in affairs and are particular about spelling and grammar. They are well informed, polite, articulate, well read and well referenced. In a world which is too often brutal and in which there is no certainty of simple plain respect from officials, they recognise their local community library as a place which holds some dignity and maintains some of the standards upon which they place value. For those reasons they fight to keep the libraries open.
They should have heard the chief civil servant responsible for the current dcms review of public libraries when he told me, in a confiding sort of way, that he couldn't understand why people these days would use a library-- 'I just go to Waterstone's and buy what I want' he said.
It is not only in Parliament that the old nursery rhyme has reversed its order: beggar man, poor man, rich man, thief-- is the order in the whole fortress of our government
Posted by Perkins at June 27, 2009 10:01 PM
Comments
Perkins is right and is good to have written what she did. Perkins should immediately be promoted to run things and, in her spare time, pounce on and exterminate all the little critters that are gnawing away at, and guzzling, what is most dear to us.
Posted by: Shirley Burnham at June 28, 2009 3:26 PM