The role of libraries

alexsandr

library in our market town is tucked out of the way. Cant it be in the town near the shops?

charles hercock

Well said Dr Pirie
Let us preserve our intellectual heritage and share throughout society
Libraries can not only be the intellectual power house but the social hub of a drive to reintegrate communities

ndm

Madsen Pirie writes:

-- Some US public libraries have been handed under contract for private firms to run, securing longer hours and bigger book-buying budgets. The result was increased library usage. Other US places have handed their libraries over to non-profit groups to run with volunteer labour, also with improved results. These could be a template for saving threatened library services in Britain.

Ah, the old "some" and the old "other" demonstrating improved results. I have not heard of any US city handing over its public libraries to a private firm. It would have been nicer, and more honest, for Madsen Pirie to have told us precisely where this has been done so we can evaluate for ourselves the likelihood of this being a template for Britain.

Edward

"Children who read tend to do better at school, and to gain the qualifications that later open so many of life's doors."

"Social mobility in the UK declined over the past 13 years, but a reading habit for children provides them with a ladder that ultimately leads to better jobs and salaries."

Of course, reading has benefits which go beyond the possibilities of running faster and sweating harder in the rat-race. That so few opinion-formers think beyond this objective is a little troubling.

anne allan

i haven't used our library in years. Whether fiction or reference, it has absolutely nothing that I need.
When I was a child, I went every week, and was introduced to many authors and many literary genres.

Tim W

In my area every school has its own library with librarians. Each child will on average use it once every two months and only against their will by having a class in there. If you want to save money why not lump all the books into the main town library and make the children walk to the library? That way you save masses on librarians, have a bigger library with a greater range of books and the library space can be used for classrooms. Obviously this only works where schools are near the town centre. But that is an obvious saving which could be made. People may cry that it deprives kids of needed reading skills but believe me, nearly all children in schools do not use their school libraries to read.

Marcher Baron

I'm a bookaholic, but I've stopped going to my local library. Not only are there rarely books I haven't read, but the last time I went, my eardrums were almost burst by a group of children in a playgroup yelling their heads off. I couldn't wait to get out and I haven't been back.

davidk

The commodification of libraries is a step beyond the pale.

NO...just NO!

Dave B

I'm surprised by this.

I use the library more than ever now, the big change for me was when the internet made it possible to search the library catalogue in advance, and check availability before buying/borrowing.

TomTom

Our Libraries Service is rated one of the worst in England. Libraries comes under "Leisure" not "Education" so gets starved of funds. It caters to the illiterate offering a meeting place for people to carve their names in the furniture and talk loudly with friends.

I used the library extensively as a child but now use Amazon. The books are old and they sell off the classic texts to Hay-on-Wye - so top-grade textbooks and reference works have to be bought.

I never visit the library any more because I read too many books and they don't want literate people but to cater for the illiterate and the noisy.

Frankly public libraries have been killed by the ideologues running them who hate people who read because they are the dreaded "middle class" aka "bourgeoisie"

Tankus

I stopped using libraries years ago , Lots of charity shops near me, where you can get a book and read it at your own leisure , from 50p to £3.oo (except oxfam who have gone stupid with the prices ) Quite an eclectic choice too .

Paul Danon

The public sector is far too big. If people want libraries, let them pay for them when they use them.

The Clouds

The sad fact is that public libraries have had their day.

In an era where information can be garnered at the touch of a button or a long out of print book purchased for pennies with a click of a mouse there doesn't appear to be much of an argument for keeping the status quo.

By all means there should remain libraries in schools and educational establishments, but the world is changing and libraries by their current nature are outdated and should probably be consigned to history.

We've chosen the path we as a country are taking, and in an age where people can barely find the time to sit down for a meal, spending vast sums on the upkeep of buildings that contain mostly relics from the past doesn't seem the best way to be spending money that is increasingly in short supply.

Michael Fowke

I used my local libraries for years, for self-education. But I rarely visit them now because the limited stock of books is a disgrace.

frances blackhurst

I am retired and live in Shropshire. I can't say enough for our library service. Reserving newly published books on line is a doddle. Usually they are ready for collection from the local branch within a fortnight and cost 35p per item.

justathought

I totally agree that access to books is essential for healthy young minds to grow. The question is if stand alone libraries are the best answer and use of limited resources.

It seems clear that the model of libraries inside college and university campuses works well. Children should also have access to an onsite library and indeed the school is the ideal environment for learning after hours. Why should valuable capital assets like schools close their doors at 3.30 each day when they could be open to children and serve the education of the wider community?

I think its now high time that the library funding should be redirected to our schools and the old library buildings put to another community purpose.

John Richardson

Look, I honestly am bored with moaning about stuff around here.

However, this is one of those depressing MSM articles.
Depressing because I now have to put the esteemed 'Adam Smith Institute' into the; 'they do not necessarily know what they are talking about' file. It's already a thick file...

Look,
though the pristine political correctness is disgusting enough (banning, despite request 'The Salisbury Review' for example, or a surfeit of pornography) I thought everyone knew why libraries have driven people away.

They have been converted into creches.

I found consultancy research virtually impossible during the summer months.

Some libraries have after school clubs with large toys !
Try telling an eight year old to 'attack the castle' less noisily and see how far you get.
Go on, you try !

Dr Pirie should have responded; 'Look I'd love to write about libraries but I haven't really used them properly for years.'

Moan over.

Simon Stephenson

Edward : 6.29pm

"Of course, reading has benefits which go beyond the possibilities of running faster and sweating harder in the rat-race. That so few opinion-formers think beyond this objective is a little troubling."

It troubles me too.

xenophon

We take our grandchild to the public library in the nearest town, to encourage her interest in reading. It's usually empty, apart from the staff; lots of computer terminals, lots of popular fiction, but nothing to interest me enough to borrow a book with the concomitant commitment to make the journey to return it.

I loved public libraries as a boy, buildings stocked with treasures to be explored. Now they seem dull places, disconnected from literature and learning.

St Bruno

If the Adam Smith Institute like libraries then they like them only for privatisation like almost everything else that once belonged to the people of Britain.

There is nothing wrong with council run libraries. They have been targeted by the greedy people who only want to save on their council tax payments if they were owned and run by private enterprise companies for profit. Anyway, who in their right mind would invest in libraries, W H Smiths, or heaven help us, Boots the Chemist? No profit in working class benefit societies. I feel in the future the only way to get books will be to buy them from Amazon.co.uk or Tesco. Authors have for a long time objected to libraries having their books then lending to many people free without the authors getting their proper dues, quite right too. Money again!

My wife and I go to our local library about once a week and spend as little time as possible in the library mainly because of the noise from keyboards, kids under three playtime, chatter in various languages, the photocopier and very few books on the shelves worth reading. We order our books via the library’s web-site at the cost of 50p per book. We get a phone call when the books are ready for collection. Maybe our council ‘up north’ is more in tune to the needs of the reader than most other areas but it works for us and judging by the books on the pre-order shelves it works for many other people. There’s a county wide search for books no matter what sort fiction or non-fiction and best of all even newly published books though a bit later maybe six months after publication. Still better than spending twenty quid on Tony Blair’s memoirs then donating it to the charity shop. Now there’s a thought.

mart

Libraries have not had their day.

If libraries have had their day, then so has civilised society in Britain.

As for them being part of the "state": well, if this is so, then they are one of the few necessary functions of the state.

Regards to all

Jordan Ash

70% of children between the ages of 5 - 10 visited a library during a given period. An impressive figure. Does that include those who visited off their own bat as well as those who went because Mum took them ?

Trumpeter Lanfried

By ad large my local library service, in Suffolk, is excellent. But I think they spend too much money on chicklit and pop music.

I suspect this is done to boost borrowing. But I really don't see why the taxpayer should fork out for 'Living with enormous knockers' by Katie Price.

Victor Southern

I have used public libraries since I was 14, over 60 years. I most certainly could not have afforded the 10,000 or more books that I read in that time and where would I put them?

The use of public libraries would be enhanced if they had more user-friendly hours of opening. Ours closes at 5pm and 4pm on Saturdays. Not much use to working people.

Bromley, not far away, opens until 8pm twice a week and opens normally for one hour later than ours.

The transition to being computer centres is not totally convincing. Many who read have their own computers. Many who don't read would not use the computers. Mostly, in the libraries that I visit the computers seem to be used by unemployed people to pass the time away.

wrinkled weasel

I am fascinated by the diversity of opinion so far; it seems to me that libraries are what people think they are. But I think Trumpeter Lanfried sort of encapsulates the problem, which is that this diversity, the way people consume library services, has spread them too thinly. Yes, they can provide celbrity trash, yes, they can be free kindergartens, yes they can be somewhere warm for old people to hang out, etc, etc, but what they are not are useful book repositories. This is because people are frightened of what used to be called, "The Western Canon". It has been politically incorrect for some time and accordingly, you end up trying to please everyone, including those who are interested in Katie Price's tits. Literature, or what I call literature, resides on a half empty, quite small shelf, the rest of the place is filled with detective fiction and biographies of people who used to be on Television. This material far outweighs anything with true heuristic value.

The Library, as a concept, has had its day and lost its way. It belongs with bakelite radios and bedwarmers. We are undergoing a media revolution, and like all revolutions, the transition period is painful and messy. But it is better to accept the inevitable, than try to prop up the social furniture of a bygone age.

John Ric...er...no, somebody else.

Trumpeter Lanfrield.
10:33pm

Huum.
Precisely, what library in Suffolk ?

Jez

Just pretend Pakistani's need to go there, for whatever reason you can generate and the local/national government will pour millions in- maybe.

You've got to help these guys, you know.

Dimoto

As several posters have pointed out, Madsen Pirie is just looking at stats, and thus confusing cause and effect - try visiting a few libraries.

They have long since morphed into child care centres (in much the same way that swimming pools have morphed into child play centres).

My local library has a perfectly good childrens section, it also has a free computing section (never used because the computers are ancient), a large part of the adult library has been converted into a "child reading and entertainment centre", complete with soft toys and inane Disney type displays.
There is a small section of book tapes and music CDs, a minute section of reference books, mostly local guides, there are a couple of bookcases of novels, a couple on history (almost exclusively WWII), and a case of well thumbed travel books.
Oh ! and a display section for local arts and crafts (mostly amateur water colours). No newspapers or magazines.

Public libraries died years ago, all submerged in the deadening lumpen mediocrity and gimickry which passes for "Kulture" in modern Britain.

Hysteria

what wrinkled weasel said - pretty much.

There is a a place for *something* in a community to provide easy/low cost access to literature, information, teh interwebz etc.

But a traditional "library" has certainly had its day - just like print media - they don't really understand this yet....

JohnAnt

Public Libraries - for schoolchildren, yes. Close the public libraries, give the computers and any books left in the libraries to the local schools for their libraries. Ask us to donate to them - we will.
For everyone else - buy your own. The retail price of books has dropped to an all time low against income.
Yes, sure, I remember when everyone could etc regardless of etc.
But that was then. It's no longer needed.

Spondulicks

A few years ago I wrote to York Central Library suggesting they start a small cafe, and was told it was not feasible, due to the presence of other cafes in the city centre. Earlier this year the library was closed for several months for refurbishing. When it reopened, about 75% of the books had gone, and there was a large cafe taking up about a third of the ground floor. I had wanted a small cafe to be attached to the library; I got a large cafe next to some bookshelves.

The central library has obviously been modelled on the branch libraries in York, which are light on books and heavy on groups for young kids. Don't bother looking for philosophy or standard textbooks or serious works of history or a comprehensive collection of classic fiction. The chavs they're aiming at don't want that, so that kind of stuff won't be stocked. There's no hope.

Shirley Burnham

A recent rash of articles about public libraries has been an opportunity for many who seldom or never use one and have done no research to fly into print. Some concede that children should read, but the rest of the population, millions of whom depend on a community library, are written off with a stroke of the pen; described as (if they are over 60) silly old farts who go there to keep warm. That is untrue and insulting. It does not surprise, as the those in government trivialise the merits of a comprehensive, properly staffed, library service and one must suppose that many writers take their lead from them -- given that they have few original thoughts of their own.

Pam Jakeman

"Library work is quite suited to retired people who want to keep active and play a useful role in their communities. " Dr Pirie has obviously never worked in a busy public library....10 hour shifts, on your feet all day, dealing with a wide range of people including difficult and agressive customers. I love it but don't think I'll have the energy for it past my retirement age! I certainly wouldn't do it for free!

Fergus Pickering

Jeeze, what a funny lot you are. I visit the Public Library in Whitstable every Friday. It seems about as full as it always was. Keyboards don't bther me, nor do kids. Have you just come out of trappist monasteries, you lot? Libraries are good for detective novels and lots of people take them out. The Library is also the only place - and I mean the only place - from which you can fax anything. Yes, there are lots of retired people there, but hell, are they invisible? They've paid in to the bloody state for years. Let single mothers starve. Cut all money to muslim groups. Privatise the Beeb. Cut the pay of the police in half. Do that NOW. But leave the libraries alone. Oh, and the staff are courteous and helpful, which is more than can be said for the useless twits in Santander for instance.

Book Worm

Here in Truro we have a big-ish library dating from the 19 Century (it's a Passmore Edwards). It has recently been refurbished, has a cafe, CDs. DVDs and - yes - books.
There's a computer based search and order system and knowledgeable staff.
About three miles out of town there's a huge book store (on an industrial estate) that is absolutely bulging with books that are not borrowed frequently. However, you can order any of these for delivery to the library in a couple of days or - if you feel so minded - you can get in the car and go and get it yourself.

As a system it makes the best use of available resources and bridges the gap between the old style 'books only' library and the newer IT based style.

What makes it really good is staff that know what they are doing, who can direct you to what you need, point out for example the excellent specialist music and drama library in nearby St Austell.

A library is bigger than the sum of its parts.

anne allan

This makes me sound at least 110 - does anyone else remember that Boots used to have libraries? People were poorer then, but, since Boots is not a charity, must have been prepared to pay for borrowing their books. These libraries probably closed about the time the 'government should do something about it' mentality took such a malign grip on the British psyche.

FF

I started using my local library after many years of not putting my foot through the door. I think libraries are valuable but not essential - perhaps a bit like church. I didn't miss libraries when I didn't go - in fact I didn't give them any consideration whatever. But I cherish them now I do. I read more and spend less on novels that I get rid of after one reading.

The starting point has to be opening hours: if they're not open on evenings and weekends, working people won't go. The second thing is an attractive environment - comfy chairs, perhaps a coffee bar - that encourages people to come in and stay a while. And, as with any discretionary activity, libraries have to market themselves.

Trumpeter Lanfried

anne allen: Boots Lending Libraries were very good. They were, in fact, the last of the old circulating libraries, left over from the 19th century.

For an annual subscription you could generally borrow one 'A' book (i.e. recent, popular, publications) and two 'B' books (older stock). From memory, they were all rebound in stout covers, with an eyehole at the top of the spine.

What killed these libraries, I suspect, was that they simply did not pay. They were after all competing with the free public libraries.

John Ric ... er ... no somebody else: I suggest you visit any of the excellent branch libraries in Suffolk. (I regularly use five.) Tell the librarian you want to read (or at least look at the pictures in) 'Living with Enormous Knockers' by Katie Price. You will find the lady librarians, especially, most anxious to help.

yank

"Other US places have handed their libraries over to non-profit groups to run with volunteer labour, also with improved results."

.

.

That's not a recent trend here in the US, Dr. Pirie. Non-profits have always had a big hand in our libraries, and the sudden and precipitous drop off in UK library usage is likely due to their unresponsiveness and disconnectedness, because they are not as close to their communities as here, where there is generally a close community involvement in the management and finance of them.

My theories alone, of course. I'm just extrapolating the bit of knowledge I have of life over there, and it's a small bit to be sure.

Here? My local community library is watched like a hawk. The seniors are all over it like a cheap suit. The paid employees best be right on with their P's and Q's, as unpaid squads of bluehairs, who know absolutely all, will clip them like yesterday's coupons. Library employees may have perks of public employee benefits, but that won't save them if they violate the code of gray.

The strategic plan is agreed to and broadcast. All of this is supposed to be in line with usage and what particularly the youngsters want, as well as the rest of the community.

So we have a coffee shop and bagels on site. Regrettable to we traditionalists, perhaps, but there you have it. But off in the corner with you slurping philistines.

And the youngsters don't shut up when passing through those sacred doors, so strange to we who grew up fearing the wrath of God might befall us, if we dared speak in that cathedral's silence. But we have quiet rooms laid out for our kind. Malefactors are dealt with swiftly, if they break cloister. And no keyboards to be clanking away in these chambers, either. And turn your pages quietly, if you please.

And the wireless and internet services are geeky schmoov, brohammer. It's all at your fingertips, at home, in the office or there with your Starbucks in hand at the library.

You have to measure success by usage. There is no other useful metric. And you have to encourage volunteer involvement, and our bluehairs are good about that. They elbow their way past our version of logrolling quangocrats, which non-profits here will closely resemble, absent that necessary community involvement. The volunteers insure that the library is offering what the community actually wants and will use.

But volunteers reduce the number of paid employees, dontchayaknow, and it's those volunteers who make the library responsive and community based, and more utilized. So this inherent tension must be managed, if you want to make libraries relevant, and grow library usage.

JJC

Why does everything in this country have to be for children, or 'child-friendly'? The majority of us, actual rational human beings, y'know, the productive ones who pay all our taxes to these little parasites need somehwere to go and something to do that doesn't involve shopping.

That's all we're good for, these days. Working and shopping, shopping and working.

That Other Fella And Not Me

Trumpeter Lanfried.4:26

Really ?
Phoar !
Thanks a lot, just let me get my (dirty) Mack.