I have been having some fabulous arguments over on Twitter on the subject of the UK's public libraries.
This has lead me to quite a few interesting things which I thought I'd like to share.
I want to say at the outset that I bloody love books. I am desperately trying to get back into reading for pleasure - a habit I broke studying for my degree, and which has been difficult for me given the stress following my mother's stroke. But it has long been my opinion that public libraries in their current form are often antiquated and unfit for purpose. Throwing public money at them will not fix the fundamental issues with them. Sure there are good libraries but that doesn't mean the poor ones ought to be saved, especially at the tax payer's expense.
In 1850 the Public Libraries Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Libraries_Act_1850) established the principal of free libraries for the masses. From Wikipedia, pros included:
- Public libraries would provide facilities for self-improvement through books and reading for all classes, not just those who were wealthy enough to afford their own private libraries and collections.
- The greater levels of education attained by providing public libraries would result in lower crime rates.
- Although the boroughs were represented by elected bodies, many people argued that the Act enforced taxation without consent.
- There was opposition to the Act simply on the grounds that founding and maintaining the new libraries would mean an increase in taxation at all, consensual or otherwise.
- Others felt that there were more pressing concerns, and wondered about the necessity for a library when literacy levels were so low.
I have had THAT particular argument numerous times in the past 36 hours... You can get e-books free, the internet provides endless reading opportunities, ebay and Amazon sell books for pennies and charity shops are a great resource for poorer people. The number of people who've told me charity shops don't sell books at 99p is incredible. Obviously I can't speak for the entire country but I know charity shops in several areas that sell books extremely cheaply - my last purchase, in December 2018, from my local Sue Ryder shop (in a fairly affluent small town), got me four paperback novels (padding out my Simon Brett collection) for £2.98...£27.96 to buy new.
Someone accused me of hoarding books - which is true enough - but somehow misses the point that charity shops are stocked with DONATED books. You can share the resource by passing unwanted books on to others - donate them back to charity, local residential homes, hospices, hospitals etc. children's books can go to schools. preschools and daycare centres. Honestly finding the fact that I got criticised for supporting charities rather than supporting my local library (which only makes money out of me if I incur fees) utterly ludicrous!
This 2017 article is very interesting (https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2017/oct/19/uk-national-public-library-system-community). There are a bunch of knee-jerk reactions you could make from it - like blaming the Tories for closures - but the truth is libraries haven't been adequately funded in decades. That and a financial crisis that required implementing austerity measures across the board. The need for public libraries has declined with increased literacy and the availability of affordable literature. Poorly stocked libraries with inadequate resources are threatened with closure for actual reasons. Many are now completely unstaffed and looking at the shelves you might think it was still the mid 70s; my old local library didn't even have a proper reference section. You often can't request books from other libraries because of either staff shortages or the lack of networking as per the article above.
As for community services, that very much depends on where you are. I took an IT class hosted at my local library in the mid noughties...the computers weren't up to scratch so they had to bring in laptops...they eventually relocated the classes completely, presumably as the facility wasn't fit for the purpose. Did I sign the petition to keep it open? No I did not. There was a bigger one barely a mile away and even that was pretty useless! I think libraries need to branch out into becoming community resource centres in order to survive; I suspect the many threatened with closure are principally the ones that don't have the scope to do so.
People keep arguing that the government had 'loads of money' for things like libraries. Have they really not noticed the 'austerity measures' that have been a running theme through most of the last decade? And such people can blame that on the Tories all they like - financial mismanagement is a problem of successive governments and local authorities, not just one time period or political party. The whole damn country needs an overhaul.
As of writing our national debt is approaching £2.2 TRILLION (http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/) and all our essential services are under threats of cutbacks and closures. Twitter user @ABosseChitty messaged me (regarding the issue that libraries don't make money):
Yup. The era when not everything was judged on whether it made money.
Hospitals are a drain on resources, too.
So are schools.
So is the probation service.
So is the police.
So is the justice system.
Etc.
Hence the Tories' desire to privatise them all.
Wake up.
Hospitals provide an essential, lifesaving service...libraries don't. Schools educate, libraries allow for self education - and as school libraries are often an utter disgrace I'd rather any love for books got focused that direction. The probation service, the police, the justice system all protect public safety...libraries do not. The 1850 idea that education would lower crime rates turned out to be a false hope: education has been compulsory for decades and still crime is a serious problem of our society. All these services are cash-strapped, all provide far more valuable services to our society.
I get that people all have their own biases - nurses will defend the NHS, PCs will demand greater funding for the police, ditto parents and teachers re: schools. And they all have valid points. But libraries? REALLY? Just as in 1850 people argued that there were more pressing concerns so too do I.
People can read online, most can afford cheap charity shop books - what the average person can't do, for example, is build their own swimming pool. Now THAT is a valuable public resource that has been stripped away for many. The area in which I live has closed all the public pools for miles. The one in my town has been demolished without planning for a replacement facility. The nearest must be a good five miles away - at least three in that radius have been permanently closed.
Twitter user @sefkhet messaged me:
And you can say that parents will provide books for their children if its important to them, but what if it’s not important to them? Kids shouldn’t have their options limited by what their parents are willing to provide.
*SIGH* Parents who don't think providing books is a priority aren't the kind of people to take their kids to a library. Kids can't just take themselves off to libraries and they need parental consent to become members. Will people who don't prioritise books, or who are 'too poor' to afford them, really do so??? I even took my kids' schools to task over the requirement that I was liable for any losses, damages or late fees incurred by my kids when borrowing from the school library - I couldn't afford to pay for their mistakes.
I also received the comments that poorer families might not have computers and internet access...well, their kids are gonna fail at school anyway then. Much homework HAS to be done online or with online research nowadays. The area where my kids grew up limited use of its computers to half hour slots, even when one was available (and they didn't have many) it wouldn't allow time for a kid to do their homework. Perhaps existing library funding could be put to use providing IT resource centres or grants to get low income families online?
I have received comments such as that I am lucky to be able to afford books (I bought cheap books from charity shops during TWO DECADES on welfare) that I am fortunate to have escaped poverty (I am on a zero income as a carer to my mother). My kids grew up 'disadvantaged', we didn't use our local library because it was rubbish, we always had books in the house so it must be possible for poor people to acquire them. Also, having books didn't seem to do my kids an awful lot of good - for all I tried to encourage them they struggled at school - even so they both ended up going to uni but I'm fairly sure it wasn't my buying them Horrible Histories or Harry Potter that got them there...
I am impressed that people seem so passionate about defending our libraries but I am bemused that they also think books are the only source of knowledge and learning. There has been much discussion of print heading for obsolescence in recent years, so many things are becoming paper-free - universities are ditching printed materials in favour of online resources and schools are reducing the teaching of handwriting as typing skills are considered more relevant.
I don't LIKE the fact that books and handwriting are going obsolete but they are. The overheads of maintaining buildings and paying staff keep going up even without providing new books or computers, meanwhile putting a resource online costs peanuts.
Why are we so keen to retain an initiative of the early Victorian era?! Lots of things were great at the time but have failed to move with the times. Then we feel obliged to keep them - misplaced nostalgia? - without full consideration of whether it's really worth the effort.
I'll finish with my absolute favourite response - unfortunately it seems to have been deleted so I shan't @ name the user who sent it but it started something along the lines of "I see from your profile that you are a recent graduate so you must have had access to a great library". Bonus points for actually looking at my profile to get an idea about who I am (I love that thing where people find themselves 'mansplaining' to actual legit experts in their fields) and the logic is actually good but curiously turns out to be completely wrong:-
I got my degree with the Open University - no access to an actual library (the OU are also ditching printed materials). There was an online library resource service - at no time in my 5.5 years of study (Feb 2012 - Jun 2017) could I get the bloody system to work. And at no point during my studies did I step foot in a public library, I used online resources (loads of academic sources there) and my own books.
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