Monday, May 23, 2005
I hate it when newspapers only give you half the story. Much of the British public goes to the source it trusts least - tabloid newspapers - for its most crucial everyday information on politics and society, according to a study.
This is because the sources the public trusts most, notably public libraries, are closed when it most needs them. The study follows official figures showing that only a tiny number of libraries and other archives are open as long as shops.
I want to see these official figures and the questions they asked. Maybe it's because I work in a borough where the library service has only been slightly compromised by budget constraints, but I suspect that if you ask questions about 'when would you like the library to be open' even those who sleep through the night would say that it's vital that it's open at 4 a.m.
Yesterday the former Waterstone's bookshop chief Tim Coates,
Oh, who let him in?
a leading independent analyst and critic of the library service
Don't get me started, 'a leading independent analyst and someone who seems to think he knows everything about libraries despite never doing a days work in a library in his life' is perhaps more accurate.
said that despite improvements, yearly figures released on Friday showed "there are still only 62 libraries out of 4,800 open more than 60 hours a week - which is the normal opening period of most shops". In March, a severely critical Commons select committee report urged libraries to "seriously address opening hours by, for example, opening in the evenings and on Sundays".
Stop spending the nation's money on fighting illegal wars in other parts of the world and put it into public resources like education, health and the library service again and they can open more. And ignore Coates suggestions about running libraries with no management , less variety of stock and fewer staff over longer hours.
Mr Coates said the figures, from the independent accountancy body Cipfa, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, also demonstrated that - in the five years since the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was set up to oversee the service - public borrowing of library books had fallen from 420m to 320m.
Mr Coates main contact with the issues being a self-appointed body who have no clear objectives but seem to want a return to libraries being full of books and nothing else. I'm just saying...
There are twenty-four hour libraries out there, mostly on campuses for insomniac university students, but if I want to talk to BT about my phone bill, I don't really see it as a great imposition that I can't do that in the middle of the night. But then, I'm in a borough where the library is open about ten hours a day during the week, so maybe I'm in one of those minority places that's not badly off.
I'll be looking out for more information from CILIP, eventually.
This is because the sources the public trusts most, notably public libraries, are closed when it most needs them. The study follows official figures showing that only a tiny number of libraries and other archives are open as long as shops.
I want to see these official figures and the questions they asked. Maybe it's because I work in a borough where the library service has only been slightly compromised by budget constraints, but I suspect that if you ask questions about 'when would you like the library to be open' even those who sleep through the night would say that it's vital that it's open at 4 a.m.
Yesterday the former Waterstone's bookshop chief Tim Coates,
Oh, who let him in?
a leading independent analyst and critic of the library service
Don't get me started, 'a leading independent analyst and someone who seems to think he knows everything about libraries despite never doing a days work in a library in his life' is perhaps more accurate.
said that despite improvements, yearly figures released on Friday showed "there are still only 62 libraries out of 4,800 open more than 60 hours a week - which is the normal opening period of most shops". In March, a severely critical Commons select committee report urged libraries to "seriously address opening hours by, for example, opening in the evenings and on Sundays".
Stop spending the nation's money on fighting illegal wars in other parts of the world and put it into public resources like education, health and the library service again and they can open more. And ignore Coates suggestions about running libraries with no management , less variety of stock and fewer staff over longer hours.
Mr Coates said the figures, from the independent accountancy body Cipfa, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, also demonstrated that - in the five years since the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was set up to oversee the service - public borrowing of library books had fallen from 420m to 320m.
Mr Coates main contact with the issues being a self-appointed body who have no clear objectives but seem to want a return to libraries being full of books and nothing else. I'm just saying...
There are twenty-four hour libraries out there, mostly on campuses for insomniac university students, but if I want to talk to BT about my phone bill, I don't really see it as a great imposition that I can't do that in the middle of the night. But then, I'm in a borough where the library is open about ten hours a day during the week, so maybe I'm in one of those minority places that's not badly off.
I'll be looking out for more information from CILIP, eventually.
