Festival time!

It is, believe it or not, springtime, and throughout the land literary festivals are sprouting up like so many daffodils. There are the biggies, Hay-on-Wye, Cambridge, and the little ones in every town from Dorking to Dorchester. The question is, what should the library do? At best they host as much as they can, sell tickets and be a general guide book to the whole thing. At worst, they are the ugly bridesmaid at Cinderella's wedding - based in a shabby building, not allowed to sell tickets, and giving away shiny brochures for glamorous events a world away from the dingy shelves and thumb worn books on display. And we are not known for selling books (yet) and those lending right fees pale in comparison with the big queue of eager people waiting to pay full whack for the latest hardback after a successful event.
But - when the authors have packed up and gone home, and the publicity posters are out of date, the library is once more the last bastion of literary culture in many towns, so enjoy the glitz and the glamour, smug in the knowledge that when they have all disappeared, you will still be there lending those books out and discussing them with your borrowers.
Don't have a festival? Start one! Surely you have a local author around who likes the sound of his/her own voice, or a town lad made good?
Who have you had in your town recently?

Bookman's holiday

So, I admit it. Had five days off and ended up visiting another library while I was on holiday. Just can't resist. It's partly out of sheer curiosity - do they wear a uniform? Is it busy? And partly out of a professional interest. I'm not above pinching ideas either - saw a great noticeboard which I intend to copy. There is also a certain amount of comparison to be done - our shelves are nicer/displays better/staff friendlier/books scruffier/carpet messier than yours.
I also like listening to the people they get in and the queries they deal with - I've been to libraries from Stratford to Scarborough, and although you would think there was a vast difference between the big city library and the tourist town, some things are universal. There is usually someone asking for directions to somewhere. There is generally a tramp or several reading a newspaper. Someone gazing at the photocopier in bewilderment. Ah yes, I think, this is familiar.
The technology is intriguing too - I am increasingly seeing self-service terminals springing up, and internet access in various forms (do they charge or is it free?) and wi-fi and hot spots and audio-posts....
What would you pinch and what would you dump from your library? Envious or proud? Jealous or self-satisfied? Or do you never look?

Blowing the budget!

Well despite the doom and gloom about budget cuts, I had a rare treat yesterday when I got to spend the last of the book fund for this year. We tootled off to our favourite warehouse and grabbed our trolleys, and filled them with shiny new paperbacks ready for our borrowers - it is always a double edged pleasure for a librarian - on the one hand lovely new books, and those issue figures climbing higher as we actually have something people want to read. On the other hand, imagining those books in six months time, slightly grubby and curled, with unnamed stains on page 304, and the corners occasionally turned down. A plea from librarians everywhere - use a bookmark!
I've not been on a buy for a while, and it is interesting to see the changing fashions - lots of manga, lots of vampires, not so many classics, no Wodehouse at all. I was armed with a list of borrower requests which we had not fulfilled and gaps to plug - everything from John Sandford to the latest Jasper Fforde, and some oddities too, 1970's crime novels and Barbara Cartland. I couldn't find the latter. Thankfully.
Still, I shall look forward to my next few deliveries, and seeing my newly bought books fly off the shelves as they always do, and this year I will wonder whether the sight is ever to be repeated, and if my purse is to be sewn shut forever.

Burning questions

So the blood is still drying on the pre-election broadcast contracts, and somewhere deep in Westminster Gordon Brown is limbering up for those curved-ball questions from whichever heavyweight broadcaster happens to be in the hot seat. I wonder if anyone will ask about libraries?
The announcements of probable cuts to the library service last week raised barely a murmur outside of library land, and in a rather depressing interview for the Guardian, Margaret Hodge trotted out the usual stuff about modernisation, Tescoisation, and Starbucks invasion. And she wants volunteers to staff libraries. Is that because they are cheaper than properly trained staff?
There seem to be a few flagship libraries springing up - Newcastle, and the proposed new Birmingham library, but what of the beleaguered branch libraries? We need a plan and we need one soon. More people visit libraries each week than go to football matches or visit the cinema - I think there would be more of an outcry if we were to shut the gates at all the grounds on a Saturday afternoon.
What would you ask the prospective Prime Minister if you could?

The first cut is the deepest

Not a good morning for those library workers/users who happened to tune into the Beeb first thing. CUTS! Libraries and leisure are the first in line for the chop - I half wondered if the padlocks would be out when I got to work, and a closed sign on the door.
Yes, OK, can't cut health, can't cut schools, got to have rubbish collected. But where do people go for information on that tricky health condition (I've been shown a few rashes in my time!), where do kids go to do their homework, who do you complain to when your bin hasn't been collected - the library!
Salami tactics they call it - slice a bit off at a time, and no one will notice. I read of one library service that won't be buying any books this year. At all. Another authority suggest that the public can use self service libraries, and just have volunteers to tidy the place up a bit. Self service! Have you ever had good food from a vending machine? It's just chocolate, pop, cheap sugar thrills. Have you ever got through one of those supermarket auto tills without being scolded electronically or beeped at at least once? If we are not careful we will be left with the library equivalent of zero nutrition, zero humanity.
Run down the service, then no-one will use it, then you have a perfect excuse to close it down.
But, you don't know what you got til it's gone, like the gal said. Let's be sure we don't all wake up one morning and realise that we are in a post library era.