It wasn't a perception but the report of the spurned author (told to hi by a
member of staff or so he said). Do the archives include the local history
collection, and do the staff know this?

f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR,
UK
tel: 01257 274 833. fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerard Robson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: Author banned in Hackney [library] - for going off-message
about the Olympics


Contrary to perceptions Hackney has an existing, improved and growing
Archives Department and you are all welcome to visit.
Warm regards,
Gerard


Gerard Robson
Interim Archives and
Information Services Manager
43 De Beauvoir Road
N1 5SQ
Mobile: 07527 385538

-----Original Message-----
From: Woodley Zena (RQ8) Mid Essex Hospital <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 8:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Author banned in Hackney [library] - for going off-message
about the Olympics

I heard this when it was first broadcast on the radio. I thought I heard the
term 'carrier bag' used to describe what remained of the local history....

Who said the Stasi aren't alive & working their magic nowadays? It almost
makes me glad to be in Tower Hamlets...

Zena Woodley, B.A.(Joint Hons), MCLIP
Library Resources Manager ~ Warner Library~ Broomfield Hospital~
Chelmsford~CM1 7ET
T: 01245-514310 E: [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Library and Information Professionals
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Perkins
Sent: 22 October 2008 17:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Author banned in Hackney [library] - for going off-message about
the Olympics


Banned in Hackney - for going off-message about the Olympics
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/22/hackney-library-book-ban>
Iain Sinclair. The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008

A warning to any innocent Hackney writer: question the coming triumph of the
2012 Olympics and, like me, you could achieve the dubious glamour of
becoming a banned author.

A year or so ago I was allowed into the library in Stoke Newington, east
London. I was part of a panel celebrating a raft of local authors, from
Harold Pinter to Patrick Wright, by way of Alexander Baron. A small and
enthusiastic audience moved our discussion from past to present - and the
knowledge that, just down the road in the council offices, a wall of
surveillance screens had been positioned in a secure basement to monitor the
renegade comings and goings of the borough. Some of the funding for this
Orwellian system was coming straight out of library funds and the rest from
council taxes.

Hackney Libraries invited me to come back in February 2009 to launch a book
I had been working on for more years than I care to remember: Hackney, That
Rose-Red Empire. I was happy to accept, believing that a work researched,
contrived and constructed in this place should have its first reading right
here. A small return on my part for 40 years of madness and inspiration,
painting the white lines of football pitches on Hackney Marshes or trawling
for used books in Kingsland Waste Market.

Then, last Friday night, I had a call to say sorry, but the invitation was
withdrawn. It seemed a diktat had come down from above that I was a
non-person and should be barred from the library for the crime of writing an
off-message piece on the Olympics. This essay, published in the London
Review of Books, responded to aspects of the creation of the Olympic Park in
the Lower Lea Valley: the destruction of the Manor Garden allotments, the
eviction of travellers, and the famous "legacy" revealed as nothing more
than a gigantic shopping mall in Stratford.

The essay had very little to do with the book I was invited to launch.
Challenged, the council shifted its ground: I was controversial. Controversy
was not allowed in libraries. There could, presumably, be no discussion of
stem-cell research or Afghanistan. And Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire fell
into that category. A conclusion Hackney was miraculously able to reach
without reading a line of a book that won't be published for another three
months.

While researching my memoir, I walked back to the Stoke Newington Library
and asked for the local history section. They told me that there wasn't one.
History had been declared redundant. All that was left were half a dozen
pamphlets in a box kept under the desk.

----
Mark Perkins MLIS, MCLIP
www.markperkins.info

https://keyserver.pgp.com/

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