The South West Has All The Best Library Views

Editorial

Many thanks to those who have sent in pictures of their libraries.  I thought my view of a pet shop from my office was good until I saw some of these.  It looks like, though, that the South West of England has all the best views.  The one that kicked it all off was from as South West as one can get, the Scilly Isles, and the ones featured today are from Devon and Cornwall.  Mind you, the Americans really took it to heart when I posted the picture on the ALA Think Tank (ALATT) Facebook group: have a look at the pictures here.  ALATT, by the way, is an informal and friendly group where librarians post queries, curiosities and funny things that have happened.  There’s nothing like it I’m aware of in the UK … but I have been tempted to start one up.  Let me know if you want to give it a try.  Email address as usual is ianlibrarian@live.co.uk.

I must also point out the great idea that is storyspheres.  This gives you a chance not only to show the items you want on the internet but also to add sound files to them.  So that a library user could potentially “walk” around your library virtually and listen to stories (or the relevant sounds of the place) as they do so.  I’ve plugged this a few times and I do think that it’s worth a go.  Have a look at the video below for further delectation.

Salcombe Library in Devon

Another view from the lovely Salcombe

Hayle Library, Cornwall

Hayle again: imagine what it looks like when the sun is shining

Changes

• Newcastle – Fawdon Library taken over by volunteers to avoid closure.
• Staffordshire – £350k cut to mobile libraries. 143 stops cut. 4 out of 6 mobiles withdrawn.

National

• Conference nuggets from Wales – Alyson’s Welsh Libraries Blog. Lots of important notes. “Overall, the conference seemed to have a ‘ready for action’ and uplifting buzz and there was lots of mention of working together, particularly from the overall winner of the Welsh Librarian of the Year award Mark Hughes from Swansea University library.”
  
• How to Listen to a Library using a Story Sphere – “If any library does not jump on this, I will be in despair” Mike Downes / Youtube.
• Top 5 Reasons why Writers Love Libraries – Time to Read. Reasons are the books, the buildings, atmosphere, resources and “the adventure”.
• Tree Week: London’s green and pleasant land – BBC. Article originally said “Like the libraries, we are not a statutory service” until it was pointed out them that libraries are a statutory service.
• Why we love Novellas – Time to Read. “My personal experience in trying to talk to librarians about novellas is that they often don’t really know what they are, or certainly haven’t given them much thought as a distinct “genre”” … ” in many respects they do deserve to be picked out and given a space of their own, in order to help some library users” … “Directing people to the Novella Award gives us one more reason to pick out the novellas from our stocks and display them prominently. Some library services did this last year and report that readers were interested in the collections and borrowed enthusiastically. Tameside Libraries is one of these, where titles in a collection of 48 novellas have issued 359 times in just over 12 months. “

International news

• Firm Donates Library To Riverine School – Guardian (Nigeria). Texaco donates “a hybrid library with a building, equipped with Internet facilities and other basic amenities to Ilaje High School”
• A Food Truck for the Brain! Edmonton Public Library Releases Video Commercial for EPL2Go – Infodocket (USA). “EPL2Go vans appear around the city providing, “a full suite of services, including puppet shows and family storytimes, as well as digital fun with iPads, robotics, gaming and more. To learn more, take a look at a new video commercial for the EP2Go service that was shared on YouTube earlier today.”
• Rijeka City Library prepares children and youth for a high-tech future – EIFL (Croatia). “The printing incubator was initiated with support from EIFL’s Public Library Innovation Programme (EIFL-PLIP). It has helped to transform our library into a community ‘makerspace’ – the first place in Rijeka to give young people free access to 3D printers and training so that they can learn to make toys, tools, ornaments, souvenirs and much more.”
• San Antonio Public Library Opens 6,000 Sq. Ft. Teen Library Inside Central Branch – La Prensa (USA) (via InfoDocket). “hopes teens will use the space to collaborate, develop ideas together and build a community. More importantly though, he hopes it will become a place they can call their own. The 6,000 square foot Teen Library includes a lab that allows teens to explore 3D printing and emerging technologies, a recording studio with custom made sound panels, a Wi-Fi lounge area, a gaming space, a computer lab with Mac desktops, and of course, a teen book and resource collection. The collection offers an array of teen fiction novels, STEM materials, as well as Manga and graphic novels. “If you want to begin learning how to play a guitar, we can help, if you’re into sound mixing and video editing, we’ve got equipment that you can use,””
• Then there were 100: Why the Toronto Public Library’s newest branch is the perfect modern library – Globe and Mail (Canada). “At Jane and Wilson, Black Creek branch is deep inside Sheridan Mall, where the TPL logo competes with the mall’s equally prominent Tim Hortons sign. Good thing that in 2009, the library changed its food and drink policy to permit eating and drinking, so you don’t have to make that difficult choice.” … new library has “beautifully realized the role it plays in the evolution of the commons in 2015, where the light is abundant and the WiFi is free.”

Local news by authority

• Barnet – Petition – Change.org. “I am asking you to stop your outsourcing plans for the following services: • Education & Skills and School Meals services • Library Service • Early Years: Children’s Centres • Adult Social Care • Street Scene Services”
• Birmingham – Demonstrate for the Library of Birmingham (and the wider library service) Saturday 13 June – Birmingham Against the Cuts. “The Friends of the Library of Birmingham has decided to call a demonstration on Saturday June 13th. It will be to oppose the drastic cuts to the LoB in terms of its opening hours, staff cuts and restrictions on the services it has been offering. It will assemble at the Waterstones book shop at the bottom of New Street at 12 noon and then march up New Street for a rally at the Council House at 1pm.”
• Cornwall – Still time to have your say on Cornish libraries consultation – Western Morning News. “Cornwall Council launched a consultation after it was announced that library hours would be cut and the mobile services abandoned as it looked to save some £1.3 million next year.”
• Devon – Chair of a new Libraries Mutual for Devon – Devon council. “We are looking for an experienced Chair to provide independent, ambitious and informed leadership at the critical stage in the organisation’s development. The Chair will have an important role in the launch of the new organisation; acting as its public face and raising its profile across Devon”
• Hertfordshire – Library marks 50 years on Hitchin town centre site with events showcasing wider history – Cornet. “These are changing times for Hertfordshire’s libraries, with a wide-ranging restructure under way which will introduce a new three-tier structure and emphasise the place of each book base at the centre of its community. ” A look at the history and changes in the public library over the last half century.
• Lancashire – Library books prescribed for dementia – Lancaster Guardian. “Events have been organised in libraries and museums to mark Dementia Awareness Week, which runs until Saturday May 23 and will include dementia friends’ sessions, a memory festival, and café and coffee mornings. “
• Newcastle – Volunteers save Fawdon Library – ITV. “Volunteers have saved the library, based at Fawdon Community Centre, after it faced closure due to cutbacks in the council’s budgets. The library will reopen on Tuesday 26 May as a volunteer-run service. The volunteers have formed a collective called Friends of Fawdon Community Library, and will keep the facility open five days a week, Monday to Friday.” Fawdon Community Library website.
• North Yorkshire – Costs could outweigh savings on library plan, claim campaigners – Northern Echo. “Campaigners fighting proposals to turn a library into a volunteer-run centre claim it could potentially lose the local authority more money than it would save. ” … ““This is an unconscionable waste of local resources. North Yorkshire County Council’s abnegation of responsibility in trying to force local people to run a community library is unfair and unsustainable.” The campaigners have also looked at the terms of the agreement drawn up in 2005 between Broadacres and the county council, which granted the council a 999-year lease of the library space. And they claim the council could potentially end up having to pay “substantial” compensation to Broadacres on terminating the lease.”

“We the undersigned petition North Yorkshire County Council to adjust their proposals to reduce drastically or remove paid staff from our public libraries. We suggest that at least one paid member of staff be retained in each library and at least two in ‘hybrid’ libraries” Save North Yorkshire Libraries petition – “This petition was signed across nine library towns; totals follow:Helmsley (221) , Kirkbymoorside (309), Pickering (318), Malton/ Norton (161) , Easingwold & Stillington (192), Thirsk (341), Scarborough for Scalby, Eastfield and Filey libraries (144) as well as Whitby (497). The figure posted below by NYCC includes the online petition (titled same wording) using the 38 degrees facility. Total Signatories: 2,433”

Other petitions: Calling for Stokesley library to remain within county provision and not be a community library and instead be a hybrid model library; Signatories: 2,047. Against the changes/cut backs&proposed cut back of professional staff at Whitby library; Signatories: 1,677. Save Knaresborough library; Signatories: 2,035. Protest at the imminent dismissal of the Settle library staff and request that the county council retain the present staffing levels at the new library at Limestone View; Signatories: 146. Starbeck library: I strongly object to Starbeck library being downgraded to a library run only by volunteers with the local community having to raise running costs. I would like Starbeck library to remain as a library funded by the county &retaining its experienced  staff; Signatories: 444. Petitions which arrived more recently, and are shown on NYCC ‘recent petitions’: Bedale Library: 2300 signatures and Eastfield Library (Scarborough) 88 signatures.” Information from email received from Save North Yorkshire Libraries Campaign“

• Shropshire – Shropshire libraries funding to be slashed by £1.3m – Shropshire Star. “Consultation is under way to look at how the buildings and the book lending service can survive and, as one council chief claimed at a meeting, even improve. Almost 50 people attended a public meeting in Gobowen to look at how its library could continue despite council funding cuts.” … “Services will look different but they will continue and will often be better.”
• Staffordshire – £350k cuts planned to mobile libraries in Staffordshire – Stoke Sentinel. “Staffordshire County Council published proposals for a nine-week consultation yesterday after figures revealed less than one per cent of the county’s population borrowed an item from the travelling vehicles in the year ending April 2014. The proposals, which the council says will ‘focus on prioritising a service for those who need it most’ will be examined by a cross-party committee on June 1. If the plan goes ahead the two large travelling libraries will be reduced to one and the six mobile vehicles could be reduced to two.”
• Vale of Glamorgan – “Delighted” council call Vale library progress “a success” so far – Barry and District News. “first step towards the creation of community libraries in Rhoose, Sully, St Athan and Wenvoe has been called “a success” by the Vale council. The council have also announced new opening times for Barry library. The Vale of Glamorgan council has revealed that expressions of interest have been submitted for each of the closure threatened libraries. This step is required to keep Rhoose, Sully, Dinas Powys, St Athan and Wenvoe libraries open following the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s library strategy being agreed earlier this year.”