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.

Do It Yourself

Now the electioneering has started in earnest, there is much debate about who should run what, and who should pay whom to run what. One of the more interesting ideas was that public services should be run by the staff themselves, with less centralisation, and thus a more local service provision.
My eyes immediately lit up! I always had a sneaking fancy to be my own boss - a librarian running a library no less! I could order my own stock, my own shelves, my own signage. I wouldn't be "branded" (the painful process whereby the council or governing body for which you work dictate what colour you have to look at all day. George Orwell had nothing, nothing, let me tell you, on some council colour schemes I have seen dreamt up for the purposes of subduing staff. Purple and pink walls anybody? Headache?). I could serve the town where I work instead of the council twenty miles away. I could open when I wanted, and remove books of which I disapproved. "Da Vinci Code? No sorry." I could finally tell the smelly bloke in the corner where to go. The possibilities are endless.
On the other hand - the library might end up being run by a collective of local townsfolk who, whilst well meaning, cannot agree on anything, except that it is a Very Good Thing that they are running the library, and won't things be better, just as soon as they vote on what sort of biscuits to have at meetings and who is to be the treasurer.
So it's an interesting idea. All I know is that someone needs to get a grip. And soon.
What would you do if you could?

The cost/value continuum. Or something.

Well, in common with many public servants, it is now the turn of us library staff to have a review of our usefulness to society, and the value of of our work. And in common with quantum mechanics, this process is so complex and impenetrable that you need a degree in micro physics to work it out.
The local council has been doing its job evaluation for what seems like months, and finally last week we all received a telephone directory sized letter containing our new salary, plus an explanation of how they decided what we should be paid. Professional skills count for nought, with some of our qualified CILIP registered librarians being downgraded. Random groups of staff seem to have been awarded extra pay for duties they do once a blue moon on a Tuesday, which the rest of us are capable of, but don't do regularly. And how do you compare a library which has just two staff, with a large branch library which has local studies specialists and a children's department running activities all year round? All this against a background of a questioning of library services in general - what are we for, who are we for, and who should pay for it, and how much?
Perhaps we should have an X Factor style council vote - give each council service a month or so to prove its worth, appoint a panel of sneering local dignitaries to pass comment, and then let the public vote where their money goes.
"My name is Dorothea, and tonight I'm going to be a slightly aging but vigorous building that has seen better days, containing all the world's knowledge, several tramps, the phone number you will need if the pavement outside your house needs seeing to, a baby morning, illicit sexual thrills (if you know where to look), several hundred years worth of local information, last months newspapers (though unfortunately some with offer coupons missing), and the award the town got in 2006 for best floral display that the council didn't know what to do with."
OR "My name is Egbert, and tonight I am the Pathfinder Project Coordinator for your town. I do flowcharts, and spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations, sometimes with a laser pointer for added effect. Last year I came top for cost savings in the quasi local quango sector...hello? Anybody listening?"
It's a no-brainer, surely?

Odd jobs

Well finally finished my chemotherapy, and am making a vague attempt at contemplating a return to library work at some point. Having gone through the treatment, it does make it harder to take the, shall we say, trivial enquiries we get each day. As a way of returning on light duties, I did think I might try to take on some of the odder queries. For instance a lady telephoned the other day and asked when she could make an appointment to have her antiques valued. I did think that instead of explaining kindly that we didn't actually do that sort of thing and it was two years since the Antiques Roadshow had rolled in to town, I would set myself up with a green baize table and a Millers Antiques Guide. Can't be wrestling with tallboys though. Small items only.
I could also tackle some of those accumulated heaps of unidentified stuff that seem to hang around. I know all workplaces have them, but a library seems to attract a very special sort of detritus. For instance mystery account books with a balance in old money that no-one knows where to file. A plaque commemorating a forgotten anniversary, now slightly chipped in one corner. The planning documents for a building that was never actually built. A Heath Robinson style contraption with a slot at one end and a piece of wood at the other, which no-one now remembers the purpose of, but Doreen who used to work here and still comes in on Friday teatime might know something about.
Have you got anything odd in your library?