Archive for December, 2013

Editorial

After a long and hard fight against the proposed cuts to Lincolnshire libraries, which have involved 23,000 names on petitions, marches and a much-criticised consultation, the council decision-makers have decided to go ahead and either close or pass to volunteers around 30 libraries. This, and the budget cut of £2m, makes the county’s library system one of the most substantial victims of the Austerity. Councillors see things differently, though. saying that due to volunteers coming forward, the county may end up with more libraries than it started with.  Campaigners point out that such unpaid branches have questionable futures but to little avail.  Indeed, Deepings Library campaigners now face the stark choice of volunteering (a position they strongly opposed) or seeing their branch close despite a 9,000 name petition to the contrary. Around 100 library staff will lose their jobs as part of all this and, no matter what side you stand on (and the councillors did not mention library staff once in their final debate), one’s heart must go out to them and to the dramas that they face.

I briefly mentioned the £100k Arts Council England grant for artists in North Yorkshire in my last post.  I, along with other “campaigners”, find it hard to reconcile the priority of keeping a viable library system open in the country with the priority given to artists in residence shown by the move.  This is, let me be clear, not a complaint against Arts Council England, whose remit is clearly to do exactly what they are doing, but with the Government that think that Libraries are all about culture and what looks like the increasingly out-of-fashion arty side of things. It seems to me and other observers that such projects, while laudable, are a more elegant offering for a more civilized age than the harsh barbaric one in which we live. It’s hard to see, after all, the sense of £100k in national money going to artists in one county while 30 libraries are effectively withdrawn in another. Indeed, North Yorkshire itself could presumably do with the money in other areas themselves: 2 libraries were outright closed last year with five more passed to volunteers. The year before that, ten mobile libraries ended and there was a £1.7m cut to the libraries budget.  Do you see what I mean? £100k is lovely and I hope much enjoyment and good work will come from the project but, goodness me, talk about skewed priorities.

And there is the sadness and the clear sign that the philistines have won the debate.  For the campaigners are all on the philistine side. In this harsh new world, we would much rather have the money for core priorities than for artists.  We’d much rather have it for keeping libraries open for goodness sake (and for their cultural, social and economic benefit) than for nice extras that perhaps make life worth living in those that survive.  Maria Miller, with her view that the only good Culture is a money-making Culture, would be proud.

Changes

• Bolton – £4.76m budget 2012/13 cut to £3.76m 2013/14. 172k less visitors 2011/12 to 2012/13.
• Bury – £3.46m budget 2009/10 down to £3.125m 2011/12 back up to £3.32m 2013/14. 53k less visitors since 2011/12.
• Lincolnshire – Approved: 30 libraries to be closed or passed to volunteers. 10 new libraries may be run by volunteers on top. £2m cut.
• Manchester – 1.4m less visitors since 2008/9.
• Salford – Visitors up from 800k 2008/9 to 1.39m 2012/13.  Budget cut £511k 2008 to 2012.
• Stockport – £4.86m budget 2012/13 cut to £4.67m 2013/14. 
• Tameside – Cut of £917k since 2008/9: cut in bookfund from £324k then to £212k now. Visitors fall from 1.19m 2008/9 to 902k 2012/13. 

Ideas

• Film competition to boost libraries – New Hampshire.

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Changes

• Nottingham – Bakersfield Library under threat.

Ideas

• Pinterest Board – Sefton.  Devon also has one.

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