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.