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Hi everyone, Back in November, I conducted a quick survey on what public libraries charge for drinks at events and for craft activities. The full results are available via this link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9r-dNr4kPL0VW83R1RJX0Rlb1U/view?usp=sharing) or the attached file. Many thanks for the immediate and numerous responses received. The big discovery from the survey for me is that, even in this times of tight budgets, the majority of libraries do not charge for coffee/tea or ask for donations for craft activities. This surprises me as, in my experience, library users do not mind such things and, indeed, would not expect similar things for free anywhere else. A practice I have seen work, where charges/donations are present, is to allow individual branches to keep income from these little extras for themselves (via a proper budget account, of course). They can then use this money for improving their crafts and, in some cases, extras like urns and book display stands which there is often now no central money for. It's notable that while there is considerable librarian worry about such charges/requests deterring users before such a scheme is put in place, it does not appear to be a significant factor in practice. I'd very much welcome evidence from other people's experience on this. Ian Anstice Public Libraries News Subscribe for free via www.publiclibrariesnews.com. Receive library news tweets via @publiclibnews