Are the libraries in your area being axed?

[Lateralthinking1]

I am currently involved in a campaign to save our local library from closure. I thought that it was just my borough that was wielding the axe but a quick google reveals a different story. There is a lot of silence on this topic and I'm not sure why.

In my consultation response, I have described how it reminds me of book burning during history's more sinister periods. I've also pointed out that while thugs chucking bricks through library windows would inevitably lead to local outrage, the proposal to effectively burn the library down is simply being debated. This, I suggest, is because it is being proposed by so-called representatives in suits.

In fairness, though, a lot of people are making their views known and I've told the local Tories that if it goes ahead, I'll find three "In Memory of the Library" candidates to stand against them. With luck, they will win and hold the balance after the next election, so that our area comes first.

What are the proposals for libraries in your area and how do you feel about closure? Are councils making decisions on this matter or are they being "nudged" by Central Government? How successful have your local campaigns been and what, if anything, has made the difference? It sounds like I am looking for helpful tips. Absolutely right. The more the better. I don't want our library to close.

[David Underdown]

Wandsworth http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/info/200062/libraries/1060/library_review_consultation.

[salymap]

My small friendly local Library closed a year or two ago. The site soon became a block of flats. A new Library was built in a shopping area some way off. It is full of computers [in a big circle in the middle of the main room] no-one seems to be available to give tuition, as was advertised. The old atmosphere is completely gone, the Librarians are averse to answering questions and stroppy. I'm not the only one to say so.Progress, I suppose,

[mercia]

our local (village) library opens on fewer days than it used to, but if there was even a whiff of closure I think the local community would take it over, so many activities go on there besides book-lending

[Chris Newman]

Two village libraries in south Wiltshire are being asked to become local community volunteer libraries. The Old Town Library in Swindon will close and others become voluntary. The mobile libraries will probably go. Staff are to go.

The Salisbury situation is complicated. The facade of our library is that of the beautiful old multi-arched Cattle Market Railway Station in the Market Square. The planners hope to tart up the square with smaller trees and big paddling pools (thereby cutting the market area) and demolish the library to provide an access road crossing the River Avon to get to a new shopping centre and multi-story car park. No plans yet where the library would go nor where the squandered money needed for the hare-brained demolition scheme will come from?

[doversoul]

People used to go to the library when they wanted to find out about things: gardening, car repair, local history the lot. Now they (we) go straight to Google. Fiction section is only a small part. So what are libraries to do when they have no more users?

[Mahlerei]

There are two libraries within a mile of me and both are looking very down at heel. I just don't think people use them very much any more, which makes them a perfect target for cost-cutters. in fact, the last time I was in one of them was to buy bags for my recycling :(

[Curalach]

My local library service was axed three months ago. It was a mobile library service and called at our village once a fortnight where it was popular with the elderly and school-kids alike. It was withdrawn overnight without notice or explanation. It used to be a weekly service but that too was ended about 6 years ago without notice when it became fortnightly.
My nearest library is now about 3 miles away next to a rather dodgy shopping centre. Ok, that's no great distance by car, probably more convenient than for many, and the staff are very friendly and helpful, but I feel that something of real value has been lost by the stroke of a council jobsworths pen.
I raised the matter with our local councillors who knew nothing of it and seemed to care less.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Suffolk's libraries are in a poor state already and fairly run down unlike the wages of a certain arrogant Chief Executive of the Council which remain buoyant!

[Uncle Monty]

Lateral, the future of Somerset's libraries is "under discussion" :grr:

I think we know what that means.

As it happens I've just got back from Frome Library, which is excellent (for a public library -- oh for my Uni libraries of yesteryear!), but some of the others I've visited (I'm still pretty new here) have seemed a bit of an apology in the first place, and may well be found easy to close without many local people kicking up a stink. Or get "the community" to take them over. I suppose this is The Big Society -- rather like Care In The Community, a good way for a right-wing government to welch on its responsibilities. . .

But never mind all that :cool2: I think I said Zinman's Mahler 3 was in the Library. It isn't, it's Zander on Telarc, complete with a third disc, an 80-minute illustrated talk about it by the conductor. Been listening to it on the way home. Sounds very good.

[amateur51]

My small friendly local Library closed a year or two ago. The site soon became a block of flats. A new Library was built in a shopping area some way off. It is full of computers [in a big circle in the middle of the main room] no-one seems to be available to give tuition, as was advertised. The old atmosphere is completely gone, the Librarians are averse to answering questions and stroppy. I'm not the only one to say so.Progress, I suppose,

"Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long"

Ogden Nash

:biggrin:

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Libraries had the virtue of being quiet and gave an aura of thoughtfulness. Now they are fast becoming noisy internet cafes (without the refreshments).

[Donnie Essen]

I see that Upper Norwood library may be closing, but I don't go to that one anyway. That's a joint one, run between Lambeth and Croydon. My local one, Streatham library, is always hella busy, often with folk who seem not really middle-class and actually require the services there. Can't see them closing that one, even if they close others. It's an important place, I feel, a genuine 'community hub' and all that malarkey. Not all libraries in all locations really have that role, though, even if they like to think they do. But truly, I think it's a great shame to see any library close.

As for me, I don't really like the changes in libraries these days. I never do much but browse and borrow in these places. Computers everywhere. Not quiet enough for ol' Donnie. No old-time library culture. No 'shhh, this is a library' from the librarians. From somewhere will be emanating the sounds from an ipod, usually from where the computers are situated. See, I want polite places where silence is everything and folk can read and work and the chairs ain't full of scuzz. However, I can't get that too easy. That's okay, though. For that, I go elsewhere, like university libraries, which are quiet and clean places, and are better stocked generally except they don't have CDs and comics. But public libraries are good for those things and should be kept open for social reasons, for the young children, for the down-and-outs, for the folk who just got off the boat and can't adjust, for the folk who need the PCs to find themselves work or whatnot, for the geeks who need a fantasy/sf section. University libraries don't cater for that. Both are fine institutions.

[kernelbogey]

.... It sounds like I am looking for helpful tips. Absolutely right. The more the better. I don't want our library to close.

Lateral - I heard that a library supporters' group somewhere (in Northern England possibly) got as many people as they could persuade to go into the library on the same day and take out the maximum number of books they could: this virtualy emptied the shelves and demonstrated that people cared.

[2LO]

Here in the London Borough of Brent six of its twelve libraries are apparently due for closure, despite much protest at local meetings. I imagine some of these will become sites for buildings to house the ever-growing population; a contradiction if ever there was one.

The borough's Labour councillors blame the savage cuts on the "Conservative-led government", of course. They say that "the last thing they want to do is close libraries" and claim that if they don't wield the knife, Central Government will. It seems they prefer to take the blame rather than Westminster.

Brent's councillors have no plans to re-open or rebuild the closed libraries if or when the economic problems are over. . .