Thursday, July 19, 2007
Richard and Judy, God bless them

I was sent this link by the managing director of John Wisden. You have to be a little patient but the denouement is worth the wait. I don't think that the scene is from our Basingstoke customer services department but...

The Richard and Judy book club isn't everybody's cup of tea. I was at a meeting where a distinguished publisher blamed it for the decline of almost everything in the book trade - a mite extreme I thought. Clearly it (and other similar ventures elsewhere in the world) tend to make a very limited number of titles best sellers and this might to some extent draw sales away from other equally worthy books. On the other hand the TV show itself has done more for the profile of books and reading than anything else I can remember (except perhaps the Harry Potter phenomenon).

It's not surprising I feel positive about R&J. Here are some quotes from yesterday's show about Kate Morton's The House at Riverton:

'I really enjoyed it'   'Completely my sort of book'   'It's like Titanic without the boats'  'It keeps you guessing - I couldn't put it down'    'A page-turner'   'An excellent book'      'If you like lying on your sun lounger for hours getting lost in another world, you'll love this book'
 
And Judy said:
 
'It's a corker ... probably my favourite of all the Summer Reads'
 
Thinking about fiction I remembered that Tim Coates wrote this a few days ago in the comments section of this blog. Nobody has responded. I think what that council is proposing is outrageous, illogical, counterproductive and wrong. What do you think?
 
Hampshire County Council, in England, is proposing that its 54 public libraries should no longer stock works of fiction.

The argument is that "people buy fiction in book shops now - there is no need for libraries to do the same job"

The proposer is Yinnon Ezra, who is head of the library and leisure service and he is supported by his council and his chief librarian, Richard Ward.

Is this an action your readers would endorse?

You can read more about this and other attacks on libraries on Tim's Good Library blog. I don't suppose it will ever happen but wouldn't it be great if R&J launched a campaign to save public libraries from the ravages of inefficient bureaucracy and political correctness.

A book which will definitely not make the R&J club is Thirty Secret Years by my former boss, Robin Denniston. I wrote about it back in May when it was first published. It is great to see that a serious book from a serious but small and independent publisher Polperro Heritage Press has been picked up and reviewed sensibly in the Spectator. All is not lost.
#    |  Comments [6]  | 
7/19/2007 7:00:54 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard

Thanks - the removal of fiction (and most other books) from the libraries in the English county of Hampshire has already been taking place for some time- as I'm sure your colleagues in Basingstoke could report. There is very little left.

A councillor reported in the local paper "Fiction is available on the internet- that's the modern way" - or words to that effect.

I hope publishers and authors will raise their voices in concern. The person ultimately responsible is the leader of Hampshire County council, whose name is Ken Thornber. He believes that he and his colleagues are doing the right thing. Will somebody tell him otherwise?

(Actually a trip to the libraries in Kensington and Chelsea will reveal much the same shortage, but there the councillors aren't shouting about it)
Tim Coates
7/19/2007 8:49:39 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I made similarly positive noises about R&J over on my Editor's Corner blog a few days back (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/viewblogarticle.php?id=270). God knows they never pick anything I'd give much house room to, but lets accentuate the positive here ...

As a librarian (by profession and training, a web editor these days) and general reader, I'm disappointed but not surprised by Hampshire County Council's philistine decision. Two points: library funding is always getting cut and they are forced to prioritise -- more funds are needed from above; more of us should be using libraries and forcing change from below. HCC's stupid decision hasn't come out of thin air -- when YOU last wanted to read a novel, did you get it from the library? Thought not.

Mark Thwaite
7/19/2007 9:32:00 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Mark

There is no shortage of funds in Hampshire Library service. They have had the largest investment in the service of any authority in England and annual budget increases of well over the rate of inflation every year, save one, in the past seven. In the past two years increases have been 10% and 8% respectively. The funding is high and more than adequate.

Nevertheless since 1999, the council have allowed expenditure on books to fall from over 13% of the funding to less than 6%. As a consequence book lending has fallen by 40% in 5 years.

There is no available or justifiable whinge about "funding is always getting cut"-- it is simply not true.

When my children were growing up -the pursuit of fiction rarely included the library; for the reason that titles sought were never there. Bookshops have learned that the reputation for having titles and authors in stock is what matters most.

There are no excuses for the conduct of chief librarians of public libraries- none at all.
Tim Coates
7/19/2007 1:15:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Hi Tim,

Good to know that HCC have the funds; this only makes their decision yet more philistine and stupid.

I'm not trying to let chief librarians off the hook. And I agree totally that "Bookshops have learned that the reputation for having titles and authors in stock is what matters most." Libraries need to stock up and stock up well -- but to make this a virtuous circle readers need to go there and demand that those great new titles are stocked.

Mark Thwaite
7/19/2007 1:28:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
But you can't expect or oblige the public to use the libraries until there is something to read.

There's no doubt in whose court the ball lies and there is no blame to be attached to members of the public who can't see any reason for using a public library.

Tim Coates
7/20/2007 7:18:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
It's mind-boggling enough that a council like Hampshire can say that they think fiction has no real place in a library, but when the officers in charge THEN says that they're not even bothered when book-issue figures go down, it's beyond belief. In fact, if this was a satire, you'd say it was completely unrealistic. It's the world-turned-upside-down.
Amanda Field