excellent points here Gareth

this is the sort f thinking we need

roll on the future
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: "Gareth Osler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2010 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: Now2 we have made the news


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