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Government plans library exploitation
• JUST when you thought that it was safe to enter a Camden public library without ear-defenders, central government steps in to raise more doubts about whether that trip to the library is really necessary.
Councillor Flick Rea’s retreat from the noisy library concept (Opening hours, October 2), has been swiftly followed by a noisy-lobby counter-attack from the culture secretary Andy Burnham.
He is suggesting that public libraries should install coffee and bookshop franchises, film centres and review the ban on noise. You may remember that it was the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which strongly advocated
24-hour per day alcohol consumption and vastly expanded gambling in the UK.
It is noticeable that more boozing, more gambling and more library coffee drinking have a common theme – extraction of money from purses and wallets.
So, the DCMS is merely continuing its mission to aid the exploitation of the British public.
Mr Burnham’s use of Waterstone’s as a good example to follow merely reinforces this rather grubby aspect of the DCMS activities. He definitely does not approve of the forceful rejection of the noisy library theory by the public in Camden and elsewhere.
He knows better than library users what is good for them.
The dangerous thing about the DCMS noisy library initiative is that it is based on an undoubted truth. Public libraries can be intimidating.
That is, they can be intimidating to those who have reading difficulties. Although this section of the population is growing with alarming rapidity, it is still a minority.
The majority of the population looks upon the quiet precincts of public libraries as havens from the stress of life outside – somewhere to browse, read and study without continual distraction. There is no doubt that the most intimidating libraries are the large, glossy flagships that are so loved by politicians and librarians.
Here, there is often some surplus space that could be used for the add-on facilities suggested by Mr Burnham.
The reverse is usually the case for the smaller, friendlier libraries, but then these are not visible from the lofty heights.
In his ministerial ivory tower, Mr Burnham has forgotten that the important thing about public libraries is that they serve their local communities. They do not serve central government. Thus, far greater credence should be given to what those local communities say than to what a remote politician proclaims.
In Camden, that seems to have occurred and ministerial displeasure has, no doubt, followed. No ministerial Brownie points for Camden then.
The Camden bureaucrats may think that is unfortunate, but the Camden residents can happily live with it.
Where there is surplus space within a library, it is possible to provide a café, or other add-on facility, for library users without sacrificing the attributes that are so valued by the majority. It is also possible to ensure that the local community benefits from the new activities rather than being exploited by them.
All that is necessary is to follow a few simple rules:
l ensure that there is a noise barrier between the quiet, library areas and the new facility;
l do not steal space from the library proper for the new activity;
l use the voluntary sector to keep all the benefits in the local community.
Contrary to what Mr Burnham has implied, library users are not against innovation in public libraries.
What they are against is ill thought out innovation in public libraries.
There has to be a net benefit for any change to be worthwhile and the calculation of this has to be on a case-by-case basis.
The search for a miraculous, universal panacea, which can be applied without too much effort, will not yield a sensible result.
The hard work has to be done if public libraries are to become the busy places they once were.
ALAN TEMPLETON
Chair, Camden Public Libraries
Users Group, NW6
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