• Campaigners lobby for school libraries – BookSeller.  “A group of close to 150 campaigners is to lobby parliament for school libraries to be made statutory, with authors Chris Priestley and Philip Ardagh among those taking part today.”

  • Every secondary school should have a library, campaigners to tell coalition – Huffington Post UK.  “A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We would like every school to have a well-stocked library and all secondary schools to employ a librarian, but this should be a local decision. “It is up to individual schools to target their resources and to make their own choices about school library provision and book resourcing.””
  • Librarians from Surrey and Hampshire prove they’re not just twinset and pearls as they descend on Parliament – Eagle Radio.  “reading for pleasure is vital for children: “It supports teachers, and it supports parents at home, and ultimately it encourages children to develop their skills of empathy – to understand how other people’s lives might be. And also to develop those deeper critical thinking skills that are needed in college and further and higher education.” “We are seeing that when budgets are stretched and pushed, a Library is one of the first places that can go.”

Authors and illustrators supporting school libraries #lobby4s... on Twitpic

“Authors and illustrators supporting school libraries #lobby4schlibs

  • Library campaigners to meet MPs – Guardian.  “Authors, teachers, librarians, parents and pupils are expected to take part in the event at Westminster, meeting with MPs to press their case that every child deserves access to the “knowledge and information that a good school library provides”. More than 120 people are expected to take part, said organiser Barbara Band, head of library and resources at the Emmbrook school, in Berkshire.”
  • Mass lobby for school libraries marches on Westminster – School Libraries.  “t is currently not statutory for secondary schools across the UK to have a library. While some schools have a well resourced, supported and properly staffed library – many do not. The lobby is calling on government to make sure that every child has equal access to a good school library.”

““If there is a downside to a month-long tour of China it is that I wasn’t present at the lobby for school libraries. This has been a cause close to my heart for such a long time. Congratulations to everybody who took part. The case for a good school library staffed by a trained, confident and well-supported school librarian is irrefutable, yet still campaigners have to make the argument over and over again. We will continue to put forward our points until those in power finally start to listen.”” Alan Gibbons

 

  • School librarians lobby parliament – Storify.  List of tweets and pictures from today’s lobby.
  • School Libraries Lobby – Stop the privatisation of public libraries. “We marched from Victoria Embankment Gardens to Parliament where individuals lobbied their MP’s to make School Libraries a statutory requirement and part of the OFSTED Inspection Schedule, they are also asking for them to be properly resourced with paid, trained and professional Librarians and Library staff.”
  • Secret Library – BookSeller.  “School libraries are the safe harbour in the storm of adolescence–which is one of the reasons why today’s campaigning was so important. It’s too easy to suggest that school libraries are a relic of the analogue world. Books are a small, but important part of the value that school libraries offer. But the safe space that libraries create—a place of study, reflection and exploration—is the true gift of school libraries.”

 

“The school library is a type of demilitarised zone in the war for daily schoolyard survival. It’s the one place where students who are serious about intellectual exploration can feel accepted and unashamed about wanting to excel. It’s the one place where loners, geeks, and misfits can escape to through fiction or fuel their interests with non-fiction.”

 

News

  • Binding books – Economist. “unlike with paper books, customers do not actually “own” the e-books they buy. Instead, they are licensed to the purchaser. Customers cannot resell them and there are restrictions on lending them. The transaction is more like renting access to a book than owning one outright. Plus, e-book sellers have the capability to take them back without warning.”.  E-book sellers like Amazon say “buy now” and not “lease now” on sites … “e-books are a new format and a different product. If the business model needs to change, goes the argument, why shouldn’t the terms-of-use and legal rights associated with the product change as well? But, if this is the case, there should be transparency for the customer too.”

Changes

Local News

  • Bradford – Supermarket’s Burley Library plans are re-submitted – Wharfedale Observer.  “New plans to extend a village library and share the building with a Co-operative convenience store have been received by Bradford Council. “
  • Durham – Sedgefield library campaigners hold meeting to fight opening hours cut – Northern Echo.  “The Friends of Sedgefield Library group was set up last month in response to Durham County Council’s decision to slash the library’s opening hours from 39 per week to 20 from next January. The group hopes to increase this to 25 hours, but needs to raise £5,000-a-year to cover the additional running costs.”
  • Somerset – Self-service technology at Burnham Library – This is the West Country.  ““Self-service reduces queues at peak times and lets staff to focus on customer enquiries. The kiosks are simple to operate, though users will need to remember their membership card and PIN.”
  • Staffordshire – Hundreds sign up to libraries – This is Staffordshire.  “”What I am particularly pleased about is that of the 13,000 children taking part, 810 actually joined the library to do so, and more than 67 per cent of youngsters told us that they thought they were better readers at the end of the summer.”

Swansea – Libraries chocolate advert

  • Trafford – National “first” for Trafford’s libraries – Trafford Council.  “Trafford is, it understands, the first public library service to offer e-book readers to its registered customers. ” … “To borrow one of the Kobo e-book readers available, customers will need to show proof of ID and leave a £20 refundable deposit. In the new service’s first week, six Kobos were loaned.”
  • Windsor and Maidenhead – Union concern over plans to open libraries on SundaysMaidenhead Advertiser.  “Library users will be able to choose their books on a Sunday for the first time in the Royal Borough starting next April. The extra opening day will be introduced on an experimental one-year basis at just three libraries – Maidenhead, Windsor and Cox Green. The container library at Sunningdale will also be included in the scheme, which will be rolled out to other libraries if successful.”
  • Wokingham – Private libraries plan scrapped – BBC. “Wokingham council received bids to run its service with savings of £170,000 to the authority predicted. But the move prompted fears of job cuts with the council now admitting it has not been convinced of the benefits.”

“We’ve done quite a lot of work with bidders but there’s not much to be had. We decided the risks outweighed the benefits to the service. It is very important to keep the service stable and it could have been unsettling to some users of the library… especially when commercial factors come into it.”

  • Worcestershire – Job centre could share space with library – Ledbury Reporter.  Council “needs to save 28 per cent – about £1.8 million – from its libraries and learning service budget and is looking at how this can be achieved without affecting services. It has announced plans for the Job Centre Plus to move from its own premises in Portland Road and into the library, in Graham Road.” … “The move would generate additional income through hosting the job centre, although it is not known how much as the information is considered “commercially sensitive”