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October 2, 2011
The public library service is in really really deep water
If the Government won't pay for libraries, why should publishers and authors subsidise them?
The extent of the problem facing public libraries is underlined in an article in The Bookseller last week
Stephen Edwards, who is a very experienced acquistions librarian is quoted expressing anxiety about the number of publishers actually willing to supply ebooks to the public library service. He is right, and despite what one commenter on the article says, around 80% of publishers both in the United States and here are refusing to. They are making the observation that if people want to read their books, they should pay for them.
We know that children need bread and clothes - but we don't give them for nothing- why should we give them free books? Or, if they are so valuable - why should the people who produce them go hungry? Shouldn't they be paid for out of general taxation.
Librarians- especially the professional ones who run the library service, as opposed to the library assistants, one meets in a public library, a well paid- so why should an author not be remunerated fo 70% of the use of their books. Most authors earn very little.
The publishing industry, though reluctant to say so publicly, is losing patience with the idea of public libraries - and soon there will be no books
Then we will see how stupid the idea that 'libraries are about much more than books' has been - because without books, a public library has no point or purpose. People won't visit, and it only makes sense to close them down
Of course I wish all this wasn't happening. i believe, passionately and despairingly, in the importance of access to libraries- but the crisis is real -so very real- and we need to start finding some substantial and sustainable solutions
In 2004 I said that the public library service would be finished in 20 years and was pilloried by CILIP, and the then Government for saying it. But I was right then and it's time we all did some serious talking. We are almost down to the last decade - and in government terms, that isn't long.
(Bythe way, I apologise to commenters on the site - we are the victims of a huge attack of spam and Iam struggling to distinguish the idiotic from the sensible, in order to post genuine comments)
Posted by Perkins at October 2, 2011 8:08 PM