Changes

UK News

  • Liverpool road show links libraries and children’s publishers – Reading Agency. The “latest ‘road show’ event for publishers of children’s books, librarians and writers. On 14 November 2013 at Liverpool Central Library the road show will provide a unique forum to build relationships for running exciting events, promotions and projects for young readers.”

“Heather Pitman of Lancashire Libraries will also be telling attendees about their current, county-wide ‘Big Read’ of The Spook’s Apprentice, which is set in Lancashire and written by local author Joseph Delaney. Organised in partnership with The Reading Agency and publishers Random House, 1,000 copies of the book are being given away in public libraries to encourage as many county residents as possible to read, review and join in conversations about the book, culminating in a screening of the film version of the book.”

  • What is the Statutory Library Duty – James Powney’s Blog.  Points out that High Court has redefined the “comprehensive and efficient” requirement and that this redefinition was found sound by the Court of Appeal.  This means IT is also included in the definition as well as books meaning that the Secretary of State’s judgement that provision of People’s Network PCs falls outside the terms of the 1964 Act is wrong:

“In reality, a service which includes the provision of books and other materials by technology and goes beyond the loan of books or other physical items, or the provision of reading facilities on the printed page, falls within the scope of s7, which is not confined to the loan or use of physical items.”

International News

  • Books: Libraries ’r’ us but it wasn’t always that way – Salt Lake Tribune (USA). “Children’s rooms in public libraries are so commonplace now that it’s hard to imagine a time when they didn’t exist. And yet as late as the early 20th century, children weren’t even allowed to enter many of the country’s libraries. A tough-minded Yankee woman from Maine changed all that. In her splendid new picture book, “Miss Moore Thought Otherwise,” Salt Lake resident Jan Pinborough tells the true story of Anne Carroll Moore and her crusade to give children from all backgrounds access to a world full of words.”
  • The four spaces:  A new model for the public library – Central Bibliotek (Denmark). “The paper is divided into three parts. The first part emphasizes considerations regarding today’s focus on both the virtual and the physical library. The second part describes the four space-model including examples of libraries as illustrations of the different spaces and examples of how the model is being used in the Nordic library-world. The third part pinpoints some critical questions in relation to the model.”
  • It’s hard for me to even remember the last time I was in a library – Cory Doctorow (USA). “Well, white dude with I’m guessing considerable stock in Google, is the library just there for your needs or purposes?” … “Libraries are not useless in the digital age, and even more importantly, they aren’t all empty. Just because you, personally do not need or use something doesn’t make it a charming  but impractical relic of a long-forgotten age.”
  • Night Vale Public Library – Nightvale wikia (USA). The wiki entry for the public library as mentioned in the Night Vale podcast.  ” Its available public computers are outdated and slow, they provide a lending period of only fourteen days, and the Biography section contains nothing but 33 copies of the official biography of Helen Hunt.” … “Remember: if confronted by a librarian while looking for a book to check out, do not attempt to escape by climbing a tree. There are no trees in the library, and the precious moments it will take you to look around and realize this will allow the librarian to strike.”

“the private library will “serve the community by showing how rich Marcus is, and what a great guy that obviously makes him.”

UK news by authority

  • Brent – Council call in police over Kensal Rise Library fraud claims – Brent and Kilburn Times. “The action has been taken after an investigation by Brent Council into the allegations surrounding Kensal Rise Library concluded the case should be referred to detectives. The council’s IT officers scrutinised the emails including IP addresses which are exclusive to each compute”
  • Lincolnshire – Consultation or Con? – Save Lincolnshire Libraries. “The report (by Sheffield Hallam University) now makes it a matter of public record that 23,000 people in Lincolnshire signed various petitions against the cuts (1) ; almost certainly the largest petition figure of its kind in the UK, by a sizeable margin. Campaigners are seeing this as a major achievement, especially set against the figure of only 9,757 people turning out for the nine Executive Members in the 2013 county election. (2) “In other words,” commented campaigner and author William Hussey, “over 13,000 more people signed the petition rejecting the council’s proposals than voted for the entire executive body combined. The mandate for those rejecting cuts is therefore stronger than that of the councillors deciding the issue and their democratically stronger voices must be heard.””

“Campaigners have felt for a long time that the council consultation made it very hard for people to express their views, and now the clear difference between the ability of the campaign group and the council to engage the public raises worrying questions about how fit for purpose this consultation really was.” … ““It certainly looks like this library consultation was engineered to fail”

“Donna, who brought along son Alex, aged seven, said: “We don’t want the library to close because it’s not only where people go as adults but it’s also children who use it. “When they get older, those from homes without computers go along there to do their homework– not everyone has a PC at home. “Without a library there would be nowhere else for them to go and we are worried about the impact on our children’s education.””