[BRIEF NOTE] On gutting library systems
Jan. 25th, 2011 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThis news gets me. Things are this bad in the United Kingdom, I take it?
The scale of the cuts in the case of the Isle of Wight surprises me; Prince Edward Island, with a similar population, has 28 (or so) branches in its public library system, depending on how branches are defined. But then, the Isle of Wight has a fifteenth of the land area of Prince Edward Island, so I can't say for certain about whether or not increased population density mitigates the effect of the cuts.
Keeping public library systems intact is, at least in part, a matter of social equity. For many people, especially those without personal access to books or Internet access or what have you, libraries play a critical role in at least giving them the chance to acquire social capital. Cutting expenditures may well be necessary in these times, but these sorts of cuts strikes me as having the potential to create long-term losses outweighing short-term gains.
A "carnival of resistance" to library closures will take place on 5 February 2011, with over forty library "read-ins" scheduled in a coordinated protest over the threatened closures.
Local events are being organised from Hounslow, Brixton and Lewisham, to Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Doncaster and Oxfordshire, with many writers – including Philip Pullman, Mary Hoffman, Malcolm Rose and Carole Matthews – due to take part.
Author Alan Gibbons, who has been a leading voice in the library protests, said the read-ins were a "carnival of resistance to closures", and that the government was "feeling the heat", with even former Tory lead Iain Duncan Smith's think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, voicing concerns that badly planned cuts could lead to services being sacrificed unnecessarily.
Gibbons promised a celebration of reading complete with balloons, storytelling and music. "The public love and celebrate their libraries," he said. "Isn't it time the government turned its back on its destructive and disproportionate closure programme and did the same?"
Meanwhile campaigners on the Isle of Wight – the hardest hit of any area, with nine out of 11 branch libraries due for closure – have echoed the eye-catching Stony Stratford protest which led members to empty library shelves by simultaneously taking out their full allowance of loans.
On Saturday, protestors emptied the crime fiction section of the island's biggest library, the Lord Louis library in Newport.
[. . .]
There are currently almost 450 libraries and mobile libraries threatened with closure as a result of local authority budget cuts, according to the Public Libraries News website.
The scale of the cuts in the case of the Isle of Wight surprises me; Prince Edward Island, with a similar population, has 28 (or so) branches in its public library system, depending on how branches are defined. But then, the Isle of Wight has a fifteenth of the land area of Prince Edward Island, so I can't say for certain about whether or not increased population density mitigates the effect of the cuts.
Keeping public library systems intact is, at least in part, a matter of social equity. For many people, especially those without personal access to books or Internet access or what have you, libraries play a critical role in at least giving them the chance to acquire social capital. Cutting expenditures may well be necessary in these times, but these sorts of cuts strikes me as having the potential to create long-term losses outweighing short-term gains.
