I'm exercised over libraries at the moment. The purpose-built (by public subscription) 1910 library in which I learned to Read (having learned to read at school) is being closed, to be sold off for housing development to make some money for the local council. Which is currently paying to have the local Morrisons clad in grass.
The council assure me that the library isn't being closed, just relocated, and there will be a new, improved 'book lending service' in the swimming baths, sorry 'leisure centre' when it has been refurbished...

I know we've got some librarians around here. Have you read this:

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/1 ... y-library/

and what do you think?

That's a really great piece, which I'll pass on to others. Working in libraries I'm biased, but that's the best excuse to vote Labour I've heard in a long time.

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"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Voltaire

Printed for the staffroom wall. Will email the lonk around too.

Thanks

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MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

Yes. Always a good idea to email the lonk.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

This is the future of libraries-

http://www.kingstonguardian.co.uk/news/ ... ap_scheme/

Or rather a one-off giveaway of books. A very wise commenter on there:



Though the local council are at fault here, it's quite incredible how badly the national government have managed all this. You'd think there might be a bit of synergy between Big Society centres and libraries, wouldn't you?

The MOD seems to have a 9 year plan to cut staff. Bankers are to get 8 years to reform. Local government got about 8 weeks.

An excellent piece which deserves a wider airing. I like the description of these services as "a fundamental duty of a civilised society".
As someone pointed out - one very good reason for voting Labour.

In 2009 I attended a Welsh CILIP conference, where the head librarian of Northern Ireland argued persuasively for libraries to be taken out from local government control and run direct from Whitehall (as NI libraries are all part of one big sub-group run from Stormont).

While this idea does have drawbacks, it would perhaps stop library services being the perennial 'Cinderella', frequently bundled into directorates along with departments (tourism in Bournemouth, Education and Social services in many local authorities) with either ring fenced budgets or more political clout.

Yes, libraries need to move with the times, but the constant fixation on the bottom line, while ignoring their holistic benefits as covered in the linked article is a crying shame, bringing to mind Wilde's comments on the definition of cynicism.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

I think the idea has too many drawbacks. We occasionally get shitstorms over some nasty Islamist book being in our libraries. I don't want this being some kind of national issue, with a nob like Pickles sounding off about it.

I'd rather that some boroughs merged their library services. Tower Hamlets and Newham would be a reasonable fit, for example.

I was thinking about having a London wide service. Then I remembered what I just said about grandstanding politicians.

A pan-London service has been discussed for years and is agreed - in principle - by pretty much all authorities. The problem comes when it gets to the sharing of budgets and information. When I worked for Ealing Libraries, we were quite happy to get into bed (figuratively) with Tower Hamlets, but Hillingdon or Brent could go screw themselves if those bastards tried to piggyback on our stuff.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

I think the 'holistic' aspect of libraries is rather overplayed. Mainly their purpose is to provide catherine cookson and dan brown books to pensioners, and somewhere for strange old men to sit reading their newspapers before the bookies open.

My local 'reference' library is a complete joke, or it was the last time I went there, under a labour government and a labour led council, a complete waste of time and money with a tiny selection of books with barely any relevance to anything. And this was the borough's main library, not a branch.

And what's wrong with providing books to pensioners or a space for people to sit?

Gloucester - regular user in everyday, from 9.00 to 19.00. He was a recently released convict, living in halfway house accommodation, where a very strong drinking culture prevails. By coming to the library he kept clean, saved his money kept his sanity, improved his life. Cost to taxpayer over basic running cost - none.

Ealing, 2010 - students use reference library for revision, as space is more conducive to study than their homes necessarily are. Cost above normal -nil. BTW agree that reference library stock is mostly obsolete, but the concept of quiet study space is not.

Dan Brown - well, Dan Brown can be great! I go a copy of his last book for my birthday and it was great. See, I had a table with one leg shorter than the others and...

Anyway, Moonshien, that was a pointless post by you, exactly demonstrating the cynicism and lack of empathy I find so distasteful in sadly so many people, and so prevalent in print in certain opinion rags (a more accurate term than 'newspaper'). Go fuck yourself, you pointless troll. It's not even 9.00 and I'm fucked off with you.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

It doesn't need to be done in dozens of locations when public finances are under enormous pressure.

It's romantic to portray libraries as temples of learning, but the reality is they are nothing of the sort.

Typical right wing thinking - poorer people must be deprived of sources in information, especially if it saves a few quid. Reading is only for those who can afford to buy books and newspapers, and don't you forget it.

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"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Voltaire

With regards to moonshien, surely you aren't still taking him seriously? Don't feed the troll.

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)

Not at all. My point is local libraries on the whole are NOT good sources of information.
Lending poor quality fiction is their main function, which doesn't need to be subsidised by the state.