Comments on: Old-fashioned libraries are what we need? Thoughts on the Battle of Ideas public libraries debate, 19th October 2014

By: jamesannoyed

jamesannoyed — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 12:53:43 +0000

Sitting in the NOISIEST library right now, and most of it is from the STAFF!

GET RID of these COMMUNITY HUBS now! They are taxpayers money wasted on employing these semi-educated left-wing idiots who gather around the desk and do nothing whatsoever.

As for “encouraging reading” or “future authors” or some such? What a load of nonsense! That is for SCHOOLS to take care of. The infantilising RUBBISH that is on offer as “teen fiction” is indicative of the fact this country is raising a generation of morons.

GET RID OF THEM !

p.s. they are going anyway! Ha!

Sick to death of this Blairite crap!

By: Ian Anstice

Ian Anstice — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:34:49 +0000

Hi Hazel. I think there has been some misunderstanding. I was the only librarian there (and I’m junior), everyone else was a member of the public. I was arguing the same as what you were arguing, it was everyone else who was saying it was the libraries that had it wrong and we should be halls of silence and art.

By: Hazel Robinson

Hazel Robinson — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 14:47:28 +0000

As a lay person, just trying to keep a volunteer-run branch library going, I wonder how these Grand Librarians can remain so removed from what is actually happening. In Dorset, the nine volunteer-run libraries are far more successful than the statutory libraries judged in terms increasing numbers of users and book issues.

This is not because our volunteer-run libraries are silent and academic but because they are vibrant, educative, friendly, welcoming and always helpful. They believe in giving people what they have requested so they will come back for more – and if that includes Rhymetime, Story Hour, Film Club, Memory Cafe, Book Group and Tea & Chat, so be it.

How dare the Grand Librarians say that library-users should be supplied with “what they should be reaading.” In whose judgement? Why should they not have what they want to read? We all know that it is reading for pleasure which brings about socio-economic success – and ‘pleasure’ is the operative word. What would be the point of filling a library with worthy tomes which remain on the shelves?

The Grand Librarians’ whole way of thinking is skewed. Of course there must be academic libraries. Of course there must be properly maintained archives and sources of information. However, we, the public, your ‘customers’, just want to have a good read and to visit an exciting, enticing place – and what’s wrong with that?

Has any of these Grand Librarians actually descended to the depths of visiting a small branch library? Surely not. The theory and the reality would clash too disturbingly.

It is no wonder this bunch has been so useless in trying to save our libraries.

By: Shirley Burnham

Shirley Burnham — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 06:21:46 +0000

“horror of having a loud children’s storytime and other noisy activities in the public library. It was felt that such things belonged in community centres and not in libraries”

Brief (max. one hour) Story Time sessions imprint themselves on the tiny ones and their parents. Remove the pesky children to the community centre and ensure that the public library does not figure in their collective memory? Ensure that no future authors or other creative people will cite libraries, browsing and reading for pleasure as their first inspiration? That is the dumbest, most selfish sentiment I’ve heard in a long time.

“The tone of debate during this debate, and indeed the whole weekend was, to my proletarian and branch library ears, quite elevated in tone and assumed a high level of education”

How nice. The great, unwashed public didn’t get a look-in then? We – the users – are fighting to keep our public libraries, but that is an irrelevance? Do not stick your noses in the air – Listen to the users, improve libraries – Yes – but do not become complicit in destroying them.

By: Christopher Pipe

Christopher Pipe — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 22:36:59 +0000

1. Those who (rightly) value serendipity in libraries forget that browsing online can also be serendipitous, though the happy hits will be different. Both ways of browsing are valuable.
2. Storytimes in public libraries are not new. I remember them in the 1950s, and Eileen Colwell began them I believe much earlier.
3. If free public libraries are abolished and everything becomes available online (fat chance!), how will readers afford the subscriptions to online periodicals and databases, the acquisition of new online books to be read for pleasure or information or to pursue an education or a career? What about the constant updating of software and hardware?
4. Is it even sensible to make every individual pay to access resources needed for a limited time? Isn’t it more efficient to make things available to everyone through public libraries?
5. Of course we need calm (not necessarily silent) spaces in which to study with concentration. We also need spaces that can be used to draw in those (especially young people) who are not used to studying in silence but need to discover the riches of libraries. That is why all but the smallest libraries need more than one room or separate area.
6. A wider issue not mentioned here is the problems arising from government separating out capital investment from revenue expenditure. I imagine most people say “Why cut x when you are spending much more on y?” And the answer is “We pay for y out of funds made available purely for capital projects.” Well, if public libraries are not a continuing investment in the future of a humane, educated society I don’t know what is. This needs sorting by visionary politicians. (Do you know any?)