Chark Blog - From Russia with Love

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Back in September I wrote about a Pan nostalgia website. Just for fun and with the polonium case in mind I reproduce one item.

This great website is run by Tim Kitchen and he wrote to me recently. It seems that people's interest in what his wife calls an obsession and he calls a hobby has encouraged him to do even more:

'I was going to stop at about 1963 when the number was added to the logo on the front cover and I do have all 1500 titles apart from two and these are all on the site. I then carried on with the later titles which still used PAN's eclectic number system. I definitely stop where ISBN comes in. Of the later titles I have over a thousand still to scan in with about 200 left on the wants list.'

On Thursday I attended a round table meeting at the Smith Institute where a group of very senior politicians, librarians, and managers met to discuss how best to ensure a first-class public library system in the UK. The debate was intelligent and constructive and clearly everyone is aware of the issues of efficiency, management and the need to deliver a service which the citizen wants. The Museums, Libraries,and Archives Council is the body charged with strategic oversight of libraries and they have produced a number of excellent reports over the years.

I have two concerns. First that, in spite of much protestation to the contrary, I'm not sure that books are really seen as central to the library system by some of of the participants. These are the objectives for libraries as set out on the MLA website:

Provide safe, neutral, shared environments for people from all walks of life
Support formal education and learning at all times of life
Act as centres of creativity
Serve as focal points for their neighbourhood
Are at the forefront of universal access to the internet and e-government

No mention of books at all.

The second concern is hard to express and hard to prove. I have a feeling that many of the key figures in the library world believe that libraies are somehow too bourgeois and middle class and that they should be changed fundamentally for a 'more inclusive' system. However, most people in the UK are middle class or are aspiring to be middle class. I think libraries do serve the middle class and they should be encouraged so to do. By creating great libraries all citizens will use them and gain educational and cultural benefits. By artificially trying to change the customer base of libraries we risk losing everything.

The Soviet Union in the days of From Russia with Love showed how counterproductive it is to impose ideologies on people. I do hope the library world will resist any attempts to use it as an agent of political change.

12/9/2006 12:33:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Richard

You are absolutely right and thank you so much for coming on Thursday. Absolutely right

The problem (among many) is that these "objectives" aren't objectives at all-- they are beneficial consequences of a good library.

So the management of the service are confused-- are they supposed to "act as a centre of creativity" - which is quite difficult and requires particular skills and resources- or are they supposed to keep their book collections up to date, useful etc?. In fact they are so confused they take no notice of all this stuff anyhow.

The chief exec of the MLA should have the sense to say "write clearly what you want done" but he hasn't. It is he invents ideas like "three libraries in one" which is his latest fantasy --

"Strategic vision for the development and delivery of public library services. Working title: THREE LIBRARIES IN ONE. Three elements and expect all library services to be delivering in these three areas:

1. Community place
2. Community development agency
3. Online library

(Why not: put some books in a building to make one good library?)

This is a formidable piece of nonsense. Much better to read James Bond, but unfortunately I am hooked to it now. Got to sort it out!

And all the "middle class" stuff wants bringing out into the fresh air. It is such tosh that given the least exposure it would have been stopped ages ago.

Tim Coates

12/9/2006 1:42:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I think we should leave them all to their creative empowered inclusive discovery and learning spaces and start something else.. a chain of libraries where books are stocked and may be borrowed. For the middle classes. Though others would, of course, be more than welcome.

SUSAN HILL

12/9/2006 5:52:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

You can't do it. It takes years and years to find buildings of the kind that are used for libraries-150 years in fact - and to throw that away is the most terrible waste.

The library service is an incredibly expensive and valuable asset- just in terms of money, never mind the reasons why we value it so greatly. It would cost £10bn to "start something else". That's the point. The library service is 20 times more valuable than Waterstone's in its stock market value.

I'm not just on this tub thumping about the importance of reading (which I can do with the best) I am also talking about the money that is being thrown away (and of course the lives of those people trained to be librarians)

Tim Coates

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