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January 28, 2012
Publishers and public libraries
I had the privilege of being invited to the annual Midwinter Convention of the American Libraries Association in Dallas last weekend. I had been asked to talk to several groups about public libraries in general and ebooks in public libraries in particular.
This is because of a project in which I am involved called www.bilbary.com
While there was much talk about the effect of restrictions on budgets and how library services are coping with them, the item that seems to much higher on the agenda of anxiety is the way the most senior publishers are declining to supply ebooks to public libraries.
In the United States last year nearly a quarter of books that were read were on ereaders and libraries, of course, want to provide the service they offer in all kinds of reading, to ebooks as well as printed books. If publishers won't allow them to do this, then they are very limited in an important part of their function .
In some camps there was a lot of complaint, and in others there were attempts to find ways to solve the problems.
Both publishers and librarians see 'reading' as an essential part of what they do, and so, to anyone outside the industry, it must seem odd that they cannot find sufficient common purpose to want to work together. Yet the gulf between their methods and principles is so huge that people even talk of 'civil war'
In the UK the divide between publishers and librarians is also a very serious concern. I believe that if all the many attempts to address library problems of the last decade had involved publishers in a meaningful constructive way, then many problems would not exist.
I also believe that all those attempts should also have involved the local councillors who have actual responsibility for the service. .. in a way that they never did.
The library world (professional and administrative) had a terrible habit of closing itself into a room and moaning how nobody understands how important they are, instead of involving people who have just as much concern and interest in libraries as they do in sensible planning and development of strategies.
In America there are ways that the matters can be resolved by bringing key people together and identifying common interests. Libraries will change- so the question is not avoiding constructive discussion, but working out what is right - for readers and the public- in the short and long terms.
One doesn't see much constructive discussion going on over here at present at is libraries and readers who suffer because of that.
The question should not really be 'will the minister intervene?' but rather - 'how can we urgently begin to renew and reconstruct the public library service ?'.. and it is a matter for councillors and publishers to resolve, as it is for civil servants and professional librarians.
Posted by Perkins at 5:34 PM | Comments (4)
January 2, 2012
Despair about public libraries in England
I was brought up, educated, as a scientist. At the time I was at school children were encouraged to declare a preference for either science or arts at the age of about fourteen- and being able at that age at mathematics and physics - I easily chose science because those were the subjects in which I got my best marks.
I only really discovered reading for myself when I left school early and went to work as an apprentice in a northern city. To be honest I was lonely and too young to have been sent to work in what was a tough environment. I hid in the evenings, because I was unable to be social.
I went to the library and brought home piles of hardback books, most of which I had no idea at all what they would be. That started a life long compulsion. Even though I then took two degrees in scientific subjects and initially worked in telecomnmunications, my solace and my comfort were then and are now reading. I am also obsessive about music. i don't know why these two pleasures came to matter so much, but they have
I went to bookselling because, curiously, at that time, it presented the opporunity to do both two things I enjoy - reading and being analytical.
My interest in libraries came the same way- I have always believed they could be so much better - if they are thought about properly and operated correctly
But they aren't- and after a decade of trying to say how easily they could be improved, I have more or less given up. I understand why they aren't improved, but the reasons are now untacklable. I don't think anything can save them. The problems aren't really about money - they are actually much easier than an absence of funding. They are, as Philip Pullman recently said, about stupidity.
The real failure I believe, and have said many times, is to understand what libraries are for. And if those responsible for them don't have a clear and correct view of that ,there is no chance of rescue or redemption.
I can't see anything more that can be done, The library service in England will collapse, slowly and painfully. Some people will be able to have ready access to an abundance of literature that they do not know about, as I did; and many people won't.
We won't be a happier or better society- we won't. And I hate to leave behind a problem unsolved - especially when I have found the solution - and yet failed to persuade people to listen to it.
There are other things to do now.
Posted by Perkins at 8:23 PM | Comments (2)