My blogs on trying to save Painswick Library have now been linked to another website - Volumizer - plus Painswick got a mention at a talk in London entitled, "What Have Global Trade Agreements Ever Done for Library and Information Workers?" at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals this week - see also Flow of Ideas website for more info and key Online articles by Ruth Rikowski who gave the talk. Plus I've seen a link to the story on the Information for Social Change website....and while looking for further information I have come across more info on libraries that I think is useful....
Photo: Ruscombe valley fields
Tim Coates, a former MD of Waterstones, now writes a library blog. He insist that most libraries could be kept open if only they were more efficiently run - and has figures to prove it. He suggests for example that backroom staff, who often account for up to half of a council's library budget, always seem to keep their jobs even as branches close. Tim Coates also points out that councils have run some libraries down deliberately - if a library's stock is poor, fewer people will use it; if fewer people use it, they can make the case for closure. Amazingly in the last decade the number of books in libraries has fallen from 105 million to 80 million.' Tim Coates also makes some very useful points in his manifesto for public libraries.
"If there were to be a word that remains lovable for me, even when set adrift on meaninglessness, it would be 'library'. 'Tea and buns' may be nice, but 'tea and buns' in the 'library' is rhapsodic." Feminist Germaine GreerSo where is the Government in all this?
A year ago the culture minister, David Lammy, made a speech to Parliament on the subject of libraries. He said: "I love reading. Coming from a household where you could count the number of books on the fingers of two hands, I celebrate libraries' central mission of the promotion of reading."
Last year budget deficits meant councils were increasingly planning to close libraries - Painswick is not alone. David Lammy wrote, urging councils to think carefully before closing libraries. He even announced that he would look at his powers under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act to see if he could, in some instances, prevent closures. Then all went quiet and by last June some 107 libraries were threatened with closure. Lammy was quoted in The Bookseller with quite a different attitude to the beginning of the year: "I will continue to monitor these things closely" adding that the figure being suggested was an exageration and in any case "Communities come and go". What does that mean?
I also wonder why the public library performance figures for 2005-6 are being kept Secret? These were meant to be available in January but the public has to pay £400 to obtain a copy. Some council figures have been released, but the totals are still being kept secret. Why?
Last week further concerning news is that the British Library may have to start charging researchers for admission to its famous reading rooms and the collection of 150 million items. A cut of up to 7% to its £100 million budget is proposed. As well as the unprecedented charges, opening hours would be cut by more than a third under the proposals.
The cuts would threaten spending on research journals and books, undermining 250 years of collecting and damaging Britain's position in the world research rankings. Other risks would include the "irrecoverable loss of unique conservation skills", the halting of targeted support for public libraries in London and the regions and the development of impressive web resources.
The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury said in a letter to Gordon Brown that funding cuts would be "a gross act of cultural vandalism. It is difficult to fathom the mind of a government that sets out to wreck a world class public institution — as you would do if the BL is forced to make these cuts."
The Daily Telegraph reports that suggestions that funding normally designated for the arts could be diverted to help cover the spiralling costs of the 2012 Olympics has spread fear among library supporters.
Another possible blow to libraries this week is news that the management committee of the Feminist Library is calling an emergency meeting on Saturday 24th February to decide on whether to close the library for good. This meeting is a last ditch attempt to rally feminists
to support the library and, if they are not able to come up with a solution, to discuss finding another suitable home for the collection. The collection currently includes 75 boxes of material from the Women's Health Library which closed last summer. The library is run by volunteers.
John Dolan, is head of library policy at the Museums, Libraries and Archive council (MLA), the quango responsible for library strategy. He is reported in the Guardian and elsewhere saying good things are happening: new libraries in Brighton and Bournemouth; Big Lottery Fund funding of £80m for projects at community libraries; the MLA service which provides every library with access to 29 electronic subscription-based products such as dictionaries, saving them 50 per cent on some titles.
Meanwhile, as I've noted in previous blogs, communities like Painswick, are reduced to trying to persuade their local authorities to let them run their libraries themselves.
In 1866 the social reformer George Dawson noted that 'a great library contains the diary of the human race'. Indeed thanks to the Public Libraries Act of 1850, there are some 3,000 libraries in Britain - a system of which we can be justly proud. This is not the time to cut or close them.
2 comments:
Just got this re the Feminist Library:
I went to the meeting about the survival of the Feminist Library in London yesterday (24th February). There were about 35 people there altogether. The situation is quite serious, although everyone was optimistic and many people volunteered to help. The meeting was called by the Management Committee, of which there are four members, but more are needed (and more were requested at the meeting). The Feminist Library was founded in 1975, at the height of the Women's Liberation and Feminist Movement here in the UK. This contrasts with The Women's Library - housed at London Metropolitan University - which was set up in the 1920s, in response to struggles for the vote for women and the Suffragette Movement. One option would be for the feminist collection to move into The Women's Library. But having now attended the meeting, I personally think that it would be unfortunate if this unique, original and important collection could not be kept intact - though it is good to have this fallback position. The Feminist Library used to be part of the Greater London Council, but when the Thatcherites got rid of the GLC it became part of the London Residual Body, and moved to Southwark. Southward Council are now demanding a high rent which is beyond the capacity of The Feminist Library to meet, at present. Hence the reason for calling the meeting in an effort to find a solution to this situation. We were all given tours of the library. The collection is wonderful, with a lot of original material, that would be a tragedy to lose. What hit me in particular though, was how this situation is linked to the businessification of social life, including libraries.
At Painswick Parish Council on the 19th February wrote to GCC to ask about the basis upon which their valuation had been made and also what was proposed in relation to GCC keeping a library presence in the building if it bought by the project. We are still waiting for a reply.
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