Would you like a book with that?

I was pleased to read that library lending figures have gone up ever so slightly over the last year - if you had asked for my prediction, I would have said that they had gone down, so I am glad (for once) to be wrong. It is however only a tiny increase, so we need to make sure that we are pushing our product, adding value, as they say in the shops, it is a dog eat dog world out there...ok but you get my drift. It used to be very clear what libraries did, and what you could get here. Not so these days - someone came in just the other day and asked where the library was. He seemed surprised to be told he was standing in it. I don't know what he had in mind, but we weren't it (perhaps it's the lack of mahogany shelves and leather chairs). I am all for getting people through the doors by whatever means, and although I profess to be a little dubious about Wii sessions or nail painting, I will try anything once - but we need to make sure that some of the people who have no intention of borrowing a book when they come in, find themselves leaving as proud card carrying library members with a book on manicures to complement the nail art session they just attended.
I am wary of turning us into another high street menace - I really don't want half price chocolate (well actually I do, but that's beside the point) and I don't want people who come to the counter, possibly for the first time in many years, to run howling from the building after being forced to borrow the latest literary bestseller, when all they came in for was a disabled parking badge.
But there is stuff we can do - make it look good: get those shiny paperbacks out front, be enthusiastic, if you have read something good shout about it. Engage!
Now troops, back to your posts, and lend some books!
Any good tips please let me know.

Reading literature in the library

I was looking at some new titles recently on a certain well known book website, and was fascinated by the plethora of titles such as "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and "Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad" to name but two. Many missionary book lovers seem to be eager to fly to various war zones or similarly troubled areas with nothing but "Sense and Sensibility" and a smattering of the local lingo to see them through. And good for them - the more people who read the better, and good literature should reach across all boundaries.
I can't help but wonder, however, if we are neglecting our own readers at home as we evangelise our literature abroad. As an experiment I looked through our classics section - we have two copies of "Pride and Prejudice" neither of which has been out for six months. "Middlemarch" hasn't been out for over a year. The only Thomas Hardy to be issued recently was the one on the telly. Same goes for Dickens. Some of the older staff here reminisce fondly about a full set of Proust that is now hidden away in a stack somewhere. Our Forsters are tatty and our Brontes are battered. It seems a shame that just as readers in Afghanistan embrace our Emily, we are forgetting about her altogether.
I also despair when students come in for either the new-fangled graphic versions of various classics and set texts, or failing that the York notes. The graphic ones have about a quarter of the text, and are beefed up with gangland style pictures of hard looking youths and mean looking grown ups with a sexy Juliet and a languishing Romeo, in the case of Shakespeare. York notes have their place - I was a student after all, but students these days seem to order them instead of the text itself.
So next time your literary feet start to itch, how about Brontes in Birmingham, Proust in Pontefract, or Austen in Ambleside. You don't need to cross oceans to promote good writing.

Shld we worry about txt spk?

OK, so, I'm an old-fashioned girl. I learned parrot fashion at school. I did my times tables, and learned to spell the proper way, and I still try to do so. I have embraced my mobile phone, but I still message in proper sentences. I send emails, yes, but I write them just as I would a letter. I have yet to employ btw, or lol, or cul8r. It is just...wrong. But, I am old, and I accept that the younger generation need to find new methods for the new technologies they grow up with. I speak from a library that now has a "chill" area (no, not a fridge) and a "teenscape" (no, me neither). If it gets people through the door, then fine.
I did despair this week, however, when we received our leaflets from headquarters for our events for Adult Learners' Week. We apparently now offer "careers advise." Apostrophes are scattered seemingly at random. Events include nail art and Nintendo Wii. I'm all for doing whatever we can to get people using our services, but offering to paint nails or play games twice a year is not the way to do it, surely. And should we not be the last bastion of plain, correctly spelled English? By all means play fast and loose with the language on the move or at play, but does there not have to be a benchmark, a standard, a universality?
Tsk and tut, say the critics, surely understanding is what matters - my leaflet, after all, is not going to cause major confusion, and advisers will offer advice, however it is spelled, but I still can't help thinking that we are libraries, and language and communication is at the heart of what we do. Should we not, at least, try to do it properly?
Please tell me I am not a lone voice on this.