I think that we need to step back a bit (especially from personal abuse)
and think what libraries are about.
Libraries are a storehouse of knowledge organised for use by their
communities, which can be academic, geographical, professional, based on
age etc.
In order to be used by their community, they should be accessible. This
means that people should be physically able to get to a library. They
should be free at the point of access. They should be available for
anyone in the community that they serve. They should cater for the
interests of their communities.
The attack on public libraries means that there will be communities that
will not have access to a library service, because the nearest branch and
the mobile library service have been abolished. Having a big, shiny new
library in the city centre does not help if you do not have the means to
travel to that library. The attack on public libraries means that people
with limited mobility will not have access to library services because the
journeys are too difficult. It means that the housebound service will be
under threat. It means that access to knowledge will be limited. It
means that access to fiction, stimulating the imagination, will be limited.
It means that people will not have the means to sustain their reading
skills, or the means to keep their minds active. It means that local
identities are undermined.
Equally, the attack on academic libraries is an attack on the very learning
ethos of their institutions. How can people learn without the means to do
so? How can research be done without access to the sources of
information?
Libraries are fundamental to a civilised, literate, dynamic society. We
need to say that the attack on libraries is a disaster for the whole
country, and that the coalition government should seriously think about how
they can deliver what they say they want to deliver, if libraries are
undermined in the way that we all know is coming.
I should add that this is my personal view.
Regards
David Kenvyn,
Tel: 0141 777 3143
Internal: 4429
Fax: 0141 777 3140
E-Mail: As above
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