#british libraries

[thepastisalreadywritten]

PART 2

[thepastisalreadywritten]

PART 1

[whatenidblytonate]

A love letter to public libraries

A love letter to public libraries

Earlier this month, the UK celebrated Libraries Week, with libraries all across the country joining in with a range of fun, creative events and activities. If I had planned my life better, I could have been a part of one of these, but I had to content myself with visiting my local library and borrowing The Library Book, which was full of essays geeking out about the importance and magic of…

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[intothestacks]

More than 100 British libraries closed last year and council spending on the service was cut by £66m, CIPFA’s annual survey has revealed.

[bermudianabroad]

I went to check out the new library near me and while it looks terribly hip and snazzy, the selection of books is mind-blowingly poor. I’m going to sound like a book-snob but there was a disproportionate number of ‘pastel’ titles, that kind of easy read chick-lit and it was appallingly laid out; an encyclopedia of birds in with pregnancy guides, baby names in history; dream interpretation, mindfulness and hard economics all under psychology. Classics seperated adult fiction between G and H, then again after M. It made looking for specific titles impossible. As someone who shelves on a regular basis, I know you can’t underestimate ‘helpful’ customers who shove books back in any old space thinking it’s better than leaving them by the till or on a cart. But I can’t imagine library patrons behaving in the same way- they’re under no obligation to pay.   It seems like books were almost a secondary after thought. There was an impressive media centre near the teen fiction. A flat screen TV on the wall and low slung neon couches. A man was fiddling with wires and the TV display showed Netflix and Youtube as some viewing options. It was, frankly, depressing.

I found this (bloated but ultimately informative...she waffles too much in the beginning) article in the Guardian. It’s pretty old being written in 2009, but this stood out:

Expenditure on books in our libraries is below 8% of the total public library funds, and in inner London that figure is just 5.7% (across the country, councils spend just 1.6% of their funding on children's books; several councils, Hackney and Doncaster among them, spend less than 1%). As a consequence, many libraries now have extremely poor book stocks. In 1996/7 there were 92.3m books available for lending in the UK; in 2007/8 that figure fell to 75.8m.[...]

"Many councils regard a library as a building," says Tim Coates, the former MD of Waterstone's, who now writes an impassioned library blog, and acts as a consultant to several local authorities. "But a library is not a building; it is a collection."

That last line in particular can sum up my experience today. When I visited my local at it’s old premises, it seemed to have far more stock. Older titles certainly, but for a space a tenth of the size of the new library, it had a greater range of subjects. I could put it down to teething issues, in that it’s only been open for 7 weeks, though I would have thought stock would be plumped long before opening.

I’m going further afield tomorrow. A quick search has listed the library in Canada Water as a good one and it’s only a bus ride away. Hopefully it’ll be more substance over style.

[libraryjournal]

The World’s Weirdest Library

The Warburg Institute was created by a half-mad visionary. Is it too strange to survive?

[jowearsoldcoats]

Stepping away from my usual posts of dreamy, skinny girls and serious looking boys in chunky knits... If you're interested in beautiful gothic architecture, Victorian history and/or rare and wonderful literature you should definitely follow this tumblr. Shameless plug, y'all.