The just-released “Independent Library Report for England” launched by the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has outlined a situation that its chief author, William Sieghart, has referred to elsewhere as the brink of “absolute disaster.” And it calls for both wholesale renovation of the UK’s library network, and recognition of their fundamental importance in society.
For one thing, the Report seems to to all too aware of the danger of its conclusions being ignored by politicians. “There have already been far too many library reviews in recent years which have come to nothing,” it warns. “Not enough decision makers at national or local level appear sufficiently aware of the remarkable and vital value that a good library service can offer modern communities of every size and character.” The Report also demolishes any notion that libraries are some outmoded service rendered irrelevant by digital media. “In England, over a third of the population visits their local library. In the poorest areas, that figure rises to nearly a half. It is no wonder that communities feel so passionately about their libraries.” Indeed, it concludes, “the future of libraries as community hubs is essential for the well-being of the nation.”
Sadly, much of that sense of urgency and significance seems to have been lost on the UK media, who have resorted to headlines playing up Sieghart’s recommendations that libraries should offer wi-fi and comfotable conditions like coffee shops – as though they were some irrelevant relic that could only justify its existence by aping commercial entities. What the Report was actually calling for was “a re-invigoration of the library network,” which “starts with a marked increase and improvement in digital technology, rolling WiFi out to every library in the country.”
The Report makes three key recommendations: “The provision of a national digital resource for libraries, to be delivered in partnership with local authorities;” the creation of a strategic task force for libraries in England; and the implementation through that task force of revitalized local library services. It also points out that “the present governance of the library network does not allow for either economies of scale or for genuine national strategic leadership. In such a fragile financial environment as we have now, economies of scale across the country could have a huge and beneficial effect.”
Sadly, the same day as the Report was released, the current UK government announced further cuts in funding for local councils, suggesting that even less money and strategic guidance will be on offer in future to avert continuing decline in UK libraries.
Libraries aren’t the problem. Libraries are a symptom of a much larger ill.
In the UK, there’s no need to go to the library when a Brit can:
1. Get on the dole.
2. Live in subsidized housing.
3. Get blotto drunk every night.
4. Sleep till noon the next day.
And the cost of all that means no money is left for libraries and similar improve-yourself services.
A few years back someone surveyed countries across Europe about crime and unruly behavior. People in virtually every country thought their country had the highest crime rate, but they agreed on one thing. Soccer hooligans from Britain were the worst behaved in all Europe.
It’s extraordinarily depressing to compare the Britain of 1939 with the Britain of today. Nor does it take too much imagination to see the U.S. entering that same death spiral.
“In England, over a third of the population visits their local library…”
Utterly meaningless unless the report goes on to say:
1. How often and
2. What for.
I ‘visit’ my local tip occasionally; that doesn’t mean I think there ought to be one in every suburb.