OK, if I were to play devil's advocate here. Keep in mind I haven't read Mr Skinner's article as yet.
There is a sunny side to the libraries. But also a dark side (which reflects society really). Is Mr Skinner not happy with the libraries overlap with this dark side? Comments I've read/ had directly said to me include: "They never have the books I want at the library", "They don't make me feel welcome at the library". I know I do not use the library as a matter of routine at the moment because of general violence and harassment (how many people are in the same boat as myself?). And it's not just crime, at one time in the past I wondered if the local library had a protocol of codewords for marking the records of certain borrowers as blacklisted (hopefully this era is over!) - and I've actually found certain individual librarians very hostile to myself in the past for reasons known only to themselves. At one time any books I took out from the library were systematically destroyed by having all the corners and the spine smashed in -- that was local crime. There has been I believe an attitude in the past that Council services were for council employees and their families. Library employees are by no means I think immune from this (what exactly is the reality of social discrimination in our libraries?). And so on.
A second point. I keyed the following recently:
"I do strongly feel that not only i) do we need libraries, but also ii) we need much much better libraries. They were state of the art at the turn of the C20, but haven't really updated since, and libraries could do so much more for their communities in the information age that we live in (they are still essentially living in an Edwardian era)."
Now some libraries are moving into the C21, but none I do not think have as yet really grasped modernity. They have a key role to play in society (not just storytime and leisure), and communities need them. If the libraries were to employ library managers who were trained at strategic management level, paid more than One-Stop-Shop managers (the latter manages complicated procedures, a library manager though is responsible for every member of the community the library serves), would Mr Skinner perhaps then respect the libraries more. If the library service were to organise and equip a community group for each of its libraries to ensure the integrity of their library was not be broached, would Mr Skinner again respect the libraries more.
A final point, on whether Mr Skinner on being invited to his local library would be being invited to an exhibition of 'Library Art' or a demonstration of 'Library Science'. This is Andy Woodworth:
"Personally, I think it is due to a lack of scientific approach or thinking when it comes to evaluating and solving the problems of the library. And this goes up and down the scale and scope of the library; too often people are guessing at what will or won’t work when a little time spent gathering data can yield results. (Personally, I think it should be called Library Arts until it starts acting like a Library Science.)" http://strangelibrarian.org/2010/08/the-future-of-the-library/
Supposing I were to sum up and say that there are issues that the libraries are brushing under the carpet?
Gareth Osler
Liverpool Libraries
http://libraryweb.info
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