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Camden News - CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 30 October 2008

Status update: Cllr Flick Rea sets the record straight with Paul Murphy

First libraries end silence, now they woo Facebook generation

Minister sees support in Camden for ‘solemn places with formidable staff’

CULTURE Secretary Andy Burnham has called for libraries to become real-life versions of the internet youth craze Facebook, places where people meet and socialise – and not just borrow books.
His intervention comes after a storm in Camden over the proposed use of mobile phones in libraries and the tearing down of “silence, please” signs.
Mr Burnham namechecked the borough in a speech to the Public Libraries Association earlier this month as he weighed into the row over Camden’s suggestions about how to revamp the service, first revealed in the New Journal last month.
The proposals have been widely criticised, prompting Mr Burnham to comment: “There’s still a view in some quarters that libraries should be... solemn places patrolled by formidable staff. You only have to look at recent coverage of Camden’s revised library strategy to see that. Silence, it would appear, is a library’s most valuable asset.”
But he added: “The time is right to look again at what should define our libraries. I want to see libraries full of life, rather than silent and sombre... Libraries should be the place where real social networking happens – libraries as Facebook [but in] 3D.”
The debate rumbled on in Camden this week as the government minister for digital inclusion, Paul Murphy, visited Holborn Library in Theobald’s Road on Friday as part of a national drive to get more people using the internet.
He met the Town Hall’s libraries chief Lib Dem councillor Flick Rea. “It was very nice of Andy Burnham to mention Camden but he should have checked first,” she said. “We may have a new strategy but it’s unlikely to include anything he’s talking about.”
Mr Burnham is launching a national review of the service which, depending on responses, could see libraries providing cafés and social clubs.
Alan Templeton, chairman of the borough’s users group, has always insisted the main problem facing libraries today is the declining book stock. He has warned that politicians should not ignore the opposition to Camden’s proposed relaxation of library rules.
“Andy Burnham has been told the reaction to the ‘noise in library’ idea was pretty negative and he has obviously tried to downplay it. He obviously didn’t think much of the reaction,” he said.
“He thought he knew best and quite honestly he doesn’t – and he probably knows absolutely nothing about what goes on in Camden’s libraries.”

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