Comments on: The view from France: what did we expect? https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2013/06/the-view-from-france-what-did-we-expect.html What's happening to your library? Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:47:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Horses for short and medium courses https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2013/06/the-view-from-france-what-did-we-expect.html#comment-5769 Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:35:15 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=5152#comment-5769 “Arguably it falls to Brian as her officer i/c libraries to do it for her. ”

Obviously, Christopher, you have never actually read the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act.

]]> By: Christopher Pipe https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2013/06/the-view-from-france-what-did-we-expect.html#comment-5768 Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:44:35 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=5152#comment-5768 No library leadership as such? “What is needed … is for someone to be put in charge – to be made accountable – to actually DO something – and particularly to explain to local councils what they could and should do.” Oh dear oh dear, that is exactly what the Secretary of State is supposed – by law – to be doing! Superintending and promoting the improvement of the public library service. So why is she not doing it? She has the power, the responsibility, even the statutory mandate to do it all. Yet neither she, nor her predecessor, nor their evasive junior minister, has shown the slightest inclination to do what the Act says they should. Arguably it falls to Brian as her officer i/c libraries to do it for her. Certainly he should not be fobbing us off with platitudes and woolly smiles.

There must be somebody in Whitehall telling them not to get involved, not to take any action, not to do what the law says they should be doing. I don’t know who it is, but could some library users initiate legal actions – plural, not just one case – to force their hand or at least to shame them into action? And could there not be legal actions – many of them – taken against library authorities for not providing the comprehensive and efficient service they are legally obliged to provide? Yes, I know the prospect of more legal actions is depressing, but are they any more depressing than the prospect of continued lamentable provision for the ordinary library users everywhere?

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