News

• Chief librarian moves in from England – Chronicle Journal (Canada). Well-known librarian John Pateman gains new job in Canada.  “Part of Pateman’s research has been in making libraries more accessible, both in terms of how they appear physically and what’s on the shelves. “Otherwise, you’re potentially missing out on 70-80 per cent of your population,” he said. “People get ideas of not going to libraries because they feel that they’re not brainy enough, or whatever.” … ““I’ve been doing this a long time, and every five or 10 years, someone will say it’s the end of the book,” he said. “But it never happens.”

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You know a job is tough when you can’t get someone in post to do it, especially when it’s during a recession, it’s been advertised for several months and the job carries a none-too-shabby salary.  The job in question is for a volunteer co-ordinator.  Why do they need one?  The service is expecting to cut £1m from its budget by removing paid staff and replacing them by volunteers or machines or – in the case of managers – not replacing them at all.

Meanwhile, over in Barnet, all surviving librarians (6, with 18.5 being lost) will be taken off the front line and apparently using them at least partially to train up cheaper staff and, of course, volunteers.  Good news then is left for Bradford which, after several months of having large parts of its Central Library being closed due to it being a fire hazard, has found the money to sort it out in the early part of next year.

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I hasten to say that this has nothing to do with the title today but, due to the very large amount of positive feedback I have received from my previous post outlining a vision for public libraries, I have made it into a web page here.  It now also contains further thoughts on the importance of the book and training.
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The following is in response to an article by Tim Coates which asks what reason libraries have for existing.

“Hi Tim. It’s true that one cannot go along doing something simply because it has gone on before. My reasons for a public library service will be different to everyone else but I offer them up here for criticism:

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The new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller, has made clear that there will be no change with regard to the Government’s approach to library closures by deciding against an inquiry in the London Borough of Brent.  This council has led perhaps the most notorious and controversial of all library cuts by closing half of its libraries and by refusing to allow volunteers to run any of them.  Here are the facts as described in the letter informing Brent Council of the decision:

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