“People would be able to chat, drink coffee and watch videos in English libraries under a new government proposal, The Independent has learnt. Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, will today launch a consultation on changing the face of libraries which he believes are out of touch.”
Obviously he wants to get you “in touch” with his thick arse as he sprays liquid shit all over public amenities.
Full nightmare scenario in the Independent
Wow. And they’ll privatise them too – they’ll be run by Starbucks.
What’s wrong with modernising libraries? Making them interesting places where people might actually want to meet and talk about ideas? There’s been a massive revamp in East London to make them ‘IdeaStores’. From the Guardian:
“It’s a formula that could have been disastrously gimmicky, but the results are impressive”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/jul/11/art2
And they do have a cafe, and it’s not Starbucks. From memory I think it might even have been fairtrade.
What’s wrong with modernising libraries? Making them interesting places where people might actually want to meet and talk about ideas? There’s been a massive revamp in East London to make them ‘IdeaStores’. From the Guardian:
“It’s a formula that could have been disastrously gimmicky, but the results are impressive”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/jul/11/art2
And they do have a cafe, and it’s not Starbucks. From memory I think it might even have been fairtrade.
We live beside the Whitechapel ‘Idea Store’ (library) which has a cafe in it. There’s nothing wrong with it – in fact it makes the atmosphere considerably nicer.
Personally, I think we need to hark back to the ideals of Narcisscus Marsh. Lock the feckers in cages with books till they finish em.
When I lived in the UK I remember the controversial plans for “idea stores”. There was a lot in Private Eye about it. What’s wrong with sexing-up libraries is it meant less money and less space for BOOKS. And “Idea Store”? Is that newspeak or just New Labour pretension? Libraries are one of the few amenities you actually get in return from paying the UK’s repressive council tax. Whitechapel is in the Tower Hamlets borough, isn’t it? One the poorest and most incompetent and corrupt councils in Britain. Most of the money that’s being fleeced from you is WASTED or STOLEN by the cunt-fumblers on your local council. Libraries ought to be libraries, and well funded. Andy Burnham is even against people being quiet in libraries! Does he have attention deficit disorder or something? If there aren’t people jumping up and down screaming, he doesn’t get it. Like there isn’t enough noise in every other fucking place you go! I think it’s also part of the war against the poor. Where can the poor get space to study? In their tiny kitchens? And where can they get access to books and research materials? In a library. Except there are only 12 books now because the video game machines take up too much space. Basically New Labour are so drunk on market forces (even in the face of free market armageddon, which is happening RIGHT NOW), they want everything to be a profit making corporation so they don’t have to spend tax money on anything except foreign wars and “consultants” who are paid millions to re-name libraries “idea stores” and so on. I worked in government under Blair-Brown PLC and nothing was called what it should be. Burnham, like Blair and Brown, is a suit filled with air. New Britain is all air. Like their air goddess, Margaret Thatcher, who when a scientist invented a way of filling ice cream with air, so the public would get less actual ice cream for their money, so everything New Britain provides is also mostly air. Idea Stores? Libraries with books taken out and replaced with AIR.
Jesus Barry. That’s just ridiculous. We live in the 21st century man! Libraries are about much more than just books – they are community centres, places of learning, discovery and community engagement. In a city as ethnically diverse as London that is essential.
Have the community centres been closed down, then, their function suddenly replaced by libraries? What does “place of learning” really mean? Does your local library double as a school? With all this “discovery and community engagement” in the building, are there actually bookshelves? How many books did they get rid of in order to “revamp”? Are there places you can study? Is there anywhere quiet in the building? What percentage of the building is given over to the taxpayer-funded cafe in a city full of cafes? Why is it only the “21st century” in New Britain?
From the Independent article you link to:
“English libraries attract 288 million visitors a year but book borrowings have fallen by 34 per cent in the past decade and 40 libraries closed across Britain last year. The Society of Chief Librarians has warned libraries that they will die out unless they diversify.”
From the BBC news item on this last night it’s clear that they have to get more kids using public libraries it’s the main reason numbers are down.
If nothings done we’ll lose what we’ve got.
I’d like to add the theory that the lack of up-to-date books on various subjects – and having less books available in general – is also a factor in the decline. Public libraries are under-funded and politicians don’t want to buy books, they’d rather the libraries paid their own way by really becoming video stores or internet cafes or arcades. Meanwhile local councils squander the council tax they’re paid, and central government just couldn’t give an airborne fuck. Department of Culture? No, it’s the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, three conflicts of interest right there. For years, the New Labour leadership has rightly been branded “philistines” by pundits, from New Labour’s Millennium Dome nonsense to their unwillingness to teach children how to play classical music – see http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2007/apr/10/aneducationinclassicalmusi – and their contempt for books is just another example of their vacuousness. Why read books when you’ve got soma, sex and tv? Everybody’s happy nowadays! Yes, it’s the spiritual death of Brave New World, delivered to you by politicians modelled on a pack of soulless lawyers from Islington, all style and no content. That’s why I called Burnham a complete fucking moron. Why not? The way these politicians talk about things just drives me up the wall. Didn’t one of these New Labour drones once say something like culture “can have health outcomes”? Whoever it was was searching desperately in twisted speech to find some utilitarian use for this strange thing called culture. I wish I could find the quote, I think it displays the level of philistinism in the corridors of power.
If what you say is correct, Ian, that the kids don’t read, well then Britain’s been dumbed down to the point of no return. Wasn’t Harry Potter supposed to save the day? Evidently not. Goodbye vocabulary, then. Brits will grow up stupid and unable to read websites like Blather.net. But isn’t that a defeatist attitude?
I don’t think sexing up libraries is the answer to bringing kids in. If you’re gonna have CDs and DVDs in a library, people into CDs and DVDs will rent CDs and DVDs and will ignore the books. If you’re gonna have, I dunno, projected holograms of dinosaurs running amok, people who love holograms of dinosaurs running amok will come to the library to see holograms of dinosaurs running amok and will ignore the books.
Jesus, I don’t know how to get kids interested in books, but I know throwing everything at them that isn’t a book is not the way.
Personally, I was bored to tears by much of the literature we had to read in school. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Christ. Hard Times by Charles Dickens was so boring I used it as an opportunity to learn how to read a book upside down. That’s how I got through it. What really got me interested in serious literature was a good family environment (my Dad gave me ‘The Bet’ to read and then I read all of Chekov’s short stories; my older sister noticed I liked David Lynch and gave me a book of Kafka’s short stories) and the attempt to find some depth in the pop culture that surrounded me (The Cure led me to Camus’ The Outsider; ‘Apocalypse Now’ led me to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness). But that’s just me – I don’t know what would work on anyone else. [And that’s just literature: what about books on politics or history, or current affairs?]
And for those who already love books, or who need the library for the books and a place to study, a lack of quiet will put them off forever. But you know, there’s a global recession coming and no matter what country you’re in books are expensive, so people won’t buy as many books as they do now, they’ll become a luxury and we’ll be thankful for libraries. Don’t give up on them.
I do actually accept Damien’s point that a building can be made more appealing, with a nicer atmosphere etc. with a cafe, but where’s the cafe? I can only hope the bookshelves and study areas are in a completely different part of the building, and there’s no visual or sonic interference between the cafe part and the library part, and that the cafe wasn’t built at the cost of having less books in the building. You know, in a university the cafe and the library are two separate things, and the public deserve as much as university students get.
PS When the Independent covered the story on Thursday, there was this leading article as well, and I agree with all the points that the editor makes:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-libraries-should-be-about-books-955421.html
I’ll get me coat.
Well, you could get your coat but in fact more Blather readers seem to disagree with me than agree. You all need to explain to me how
Andy Burnham is not a complete fucking moron
or
Andy Burnham is not a complete fucking moron
or
Andy Burnham is not a complete fucking moron (the man don’t fuck)
or
Andy Burnham is not a complete fucking moron (it’s something else)
I’m sure Andy Burnham is a complete fucking moron, he is after all a government minister and it would appear a prerequisite for the job.
However even The Society of Chief Librarians has warned libraries that they will die out unless they diversify.
Perhaps if they had been better funded in the first place or if government had directed local authorities to spend more of their council tax revenues on libraries we wouldn’t be in this situation but we are and changes need to be made to raise borrower numbers and safeguard what’s left.
My children are grown up now but I have fond memories of the countless trips we made to our local library, the fun we had there and the books they enjoyed.
I’m sure the visits improved their reading skills and made libraries seem less intimidating places ensuring their life long use of them.