Libraries

Editorial Another week of, on aggregate, good news for libraries. The biggest of these is Bradford, that has gone from wanting to, basically, strip its library service to, rather, keep it all open but with more co-locations and other services coming in. The last decade has been very much a period of co-locationing libraries with…

Editorial It’s no surprise when a government spokesman says how they’re big believers and funders in libraries. Any government is accomplished at massaging the truth and the person in question may even have believed it. The line about wanting libraries to “thrive” is directly out of the Ed Vaizey playbook, circa 2012, and the bias…

Editorial It’s good to see Arts Council England emphasising public libraries in its new strategy. As the major “extra” funder of the sector, its influence has been felt over the last decade too often in the form of promising but, ultimately, quickly forgotten one-offs and innumerable small theatre shows. Recently this has changed with longer…

Editorial A few of the items this week show how dependent some public library services are on volunteers. North Yorkshire says “acknowledges that without the support of more than 2,000 volunteers and others the service as it exists today would not be possible.”, Oxfordshire open a new branch but say that they will need volunteers…

Editorial So the first battle announced in the ongoing war on public libraries is in Hampshire, with 10 out of 48 are under threat plus threats to opening hours and to the pre-existing volunteer libraries there. Local authors and residents have been quick to protest while the local, mainly Conservative, politicians acquiesce and the council…

Editorial The turn of the year is a good time to review what has been going on, not least because I get a few days off. The following does not pretend to be comprehensive and will doubtless miss out on many important trends – if I included everything, it would be too long and no-one…

Well, I was going to do a review of the year this post but that will have to wait as it’s just so great to see so many people connected with public libraries receiving a mention in the New Year’s Honours List. All in all, I count fifteen such people – all mentioned below, don’t…

Editorial So, Mr Johnson and the Conservatives have won a fourth term in office and will likely, gosh, be the government until May 2024. Putting aside Boris’s unlikely promise of investing in libraries even if his two conditions for it are met – the economy is booming and Brexit has happened – what does the…

Editorial The timing of the CIPFA figures for libraries is normally embarrassing for something supposedly from the information sector. The figures are published, in this age of instant communication, a full eight months after the period they cover and have a hight cost attached, despite councils giving their information for free. However, the timing this…

Editorial I was out this morning helping my wife clear up after the local Christmas parade. Feeling a bit tired after both this and playing a certain festive gentlemen the day before (205 children seen in 270 minutes – a new personal best), I got home to see someone had tweeted me that Andrew Marr…