Dear colleagues
Not an earth-shatteringly important point, perhaps, but it might be worth
noting that one of the things that fascinates officers concerned with
community regeneration/neighbourhood renewal/IEG agendas, and those beyond
local government, is the extensive and all pervasive nature of the library
network. They are gripped by the realisation that there are "community
venues" that, in theory anyway, anyone can use for a whole range of
purposes, and that can be linked via ICT for a multitude of purposes...
So what? Well, the fact that they have literally millions of pounds to
allocate to "community based" partners is a bit of an incentive not to
rationalise away one of key USPs...maybe
David Murray
Director
London Libraries Development Agency
35 St Martin's Street
London
WC2H 7HP
t 020 7641 5266
f 020 7641 5266
m 07932 613807
www.llda.org.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Heywood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 5:52 PM
Subject: the future of the main library
> While we're having ruminative questions on the list I thought I'd chuck
this
> into the pool. I'm thinking aloud here and to my knowledge none of this
> reflects anything going on where I work.
>
> The recent trend nationally has been to close down small
"under-performing"
> libraries in favour of big "superlibraries". Is that the right way round?
In
> these days of networked catalogues and circulation systems and on-line
> reference materials should we be looking more at a decentralised delivery
> model?
>
> In some respects the only reason to have a main library at all is to find
> somewhere big enough to fit a great pile of books and, in many cases,
> habitable for support and managerial staff (or at least close enough
thereto
> to meet the needs of the Shops Acts). Because these are the "important"
> libraries they tend to be the ones with the greatest opening hours. They
> also tend to be in town centres away from where people live. Meanwhile,
> people travel home from the town centres where they tend to work, have
their
> tea, go to their local small branch library and find it closed. Given the
> choice between travelling back into town to go to the library or going
home
> and watching the telly a good proportion will probably do the latter.
>
> So... say you're keeping a main library open for 40 hours a week with 10
> staff (I'm keeping the sums simple) and keeping branch libraries open for
20
> hours a week with 2 staff, why not redeploy the main library staff so that
> you're keeping five branches open for an additional 20 hours each,
> preferably at evenings and weekends? And get all those public library
> standard Brownie points. Not having a big range of stock immediately on
the
> shelves isn't such a big deal these days: after all, if you've got a
> networked cataloguing/circulation system it doesn't matter where a book
> physically lives, it's available for loan anywhere on the system. Or to
use
> an example from the retailing field: how many items can you see on the
> shelves when you go shopping at Argos? Your OPAC is your Argos catalogue.
>
> There are probably tons of legitimate - and less so - arguments against
the
> idea, I can think of a few myself. I just thought it might be interesting
to
> poke this lemon with a stick.
>
> Steven
>
>
> Steven Heywood
> Systems Manager
> Rochdale Library Service
> Wheatsheaf Library
> Baillie Street
> Rochdale OL16 1JZ
> Tel: 01706 864967
> Fax: 01706 864992
> email: [log in to unmask]
>
> Feeling glum? See
> http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/living/libraries.asp?url=pageofun and see what
> real glum looks like!
>
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