John Hughes wrote:
> On 24 Jun 2004, at 09:44, Hanstock, Terry wrote:
>
>> There was a debate on Libraries in Parliament (Westminster Hall)
>> yesterday.
>
> Quite enlightening and good to see a fairly comprehensive assessment of
> the current national position, if basically from a London standpoint.
>
> Estelle Morris's response was as supportive as necessary, although she
> appears to have taken some of Coates' arguments too much to heart and
> the "leadership/management" programme needs to be extended to direct
> service level, in my view, if it is to be truly effective.
>
> If Hansard is a spotlight, it's nice to see the service in it.
>
> Thanks to Terry for the prompt.
>
Well, I suppose so, but I would hardly call it a debate. There was a speech
by the proponent (one of our own), followed by a reply from the Minister,
with one intervention by the proponent! Linda Perham obviously knows what
she is talking about - although if I was asked for the "FBI Handbook" I
would think first of the CIA World Factbook. But the Minister's speech
didn't give me any confidence that she understood what she was reading (and
the sly "street corner universities" reference went completely over her
head). She seems to think that "libraries" have been around for 150 years,
for example. Both sides concentrated on "Framework for the Future", which
had completely underwhelmed me. The only glimmer of thinking, albeit
woolly, from the government came in the suggestion that local authorities
might work together "perhaps on a regional or sub-regional basis". It is
blindingly obvious that public library funding should be coordinated on a
regional basis, but sub-regions would appear to be a non-starter, as they
can cut through counties.
John Briggs
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