Posts tagged libraries
“ It’s always difficult to explain to people with money what it’s like to have very little. It’s all very well replacing local libraries with enormous libraries—but for those families for whom getting on a train to visit the British Library is inconceivable, having a local branch 100 yards from your front door can change your life.”
Zadie Smith; Loses Battle to Save a London Library - Entertainment - The Atlantic Wire (via peterwknox)
Absolutely right and it looks like Zadie Smith’s campaign to save her local library has failed too. Such a shame.
(via librarianista)
“ So often absolutely ordinary in appearance, a good library should offer escape routes down the most extraordinary avenues, pathways into different worlds from the one you’ve left outside. Ridding our villages, towns and cities of libraries, which are essential in shaping a nation’s consciousness, seems like a direct attack on the soul of the country.”
‘If you tolerate this …’: Nicky Wire on library closures | Books | The Guardian
Nice piece by the Manic Street Preachers’ Nicky Wire, who of course famously wrote the line, ‘Libraries gave us power, then work came and made us free.’
Regular folk and celebrities line up to try and persuade the government not to close more than half of Somerset’s libraries.
Also, at 1.26, my mother-in-law to be.
“ More than any other institution in my city the public library is the most effective melting pot of economic and social categories. The highly educated, the people who will eat supper at a soup kitchen, the recent immigrant — and everyone else, all of us — are here. And everyone seems to feel at home.”
On the Public Library | James Shelley
All reasons why communities across the UK are horrified about the goverment’s proposed plans to cut funding and close a great swathe of our public libraries.
Fighting to save a library and a town | Post-Apocalyptic Publishing
The library closures are still big news in the UK. This post by Emma Newman talks about the fight to save her town’s library. It’s stirring stuff.
I wanted to rail at the sheer disgust burning in my gut at how “they” proposed to deny free access to books and knowledge. I wanted to shake my fist and launch a searing attack against an administration who wanted to deny my child and all of the other children in this dying town the opportunity to discover the joy of books without the involvement of money. I wanted to yell that libraries are the last bastion of learning above consumerism.
This story is particularly pertinent to me as my soon-to-be in-laws live nearby, in Wells. I’m getting married just a few miles down the road. It’s where my children may well grow up.
One thing I will say though. Much of the opposition to the library closures, perfectly valid though it is, has focused on the brilliant service they’ve provided over the years. That’s fine. But let’s start looking forward.
Libraries are places to learn. People learn in so many ways these days and via all means of technology, from desktop PCs to iPhone apps.
Our libraries need investment. We need to make them learning hubs all over again. Perhaps the campaign to save the libraries can focus on change as much as staying the same. Being transformed instead of simply kept going.
It’s so tough to envisage though, what with the enormous cuts in public spending. Sad, sad times.
Libraries of the Rich and Famous
A little time wasting activity for you here as we’re shown a selection of personal libraries from famous people with plenty of books.
This one is by far the best. It’s Karl Lagerfeld’s.
“ The more that objects become replaced by digital virtual counterparts – from records and books to photo albums and even cash – watch for people to fetishize the physical object. Books are being turned into decorative accessories, for example, and records into art.”
Selling a Book by Its Cover - NYTimes.com
True that. Interesting read too. One for reading later and in full with a cup of cocoa or a glass of sherry.
Check Out Library Books Using Your Phone - eBookNewser
OverDrive, a digital book distributor for libraries and schools, has released apps for the iPhone and Android phones, so that readers can download library books directly to their phones.
Now this is an interesting idea. But imagine if the app was 99p and all the money gained for it was plied back into the country’s libraries. People could still use the library itself for free, but those who can afford a smartphone can no doubt afford this small charge. Just think how far all those pennies could go.
Come on government and publishing industry people. Innovate. We’re all waiting.
“ If we abandon print, we put ourselves at great risk of even greater losses in the future. Digital archives are expensive to migrate forward and far too easy to corrupt, either accidentally or intentionally. But a series of archives around the world, filled with printed books, periodicals, even films, are a much higher guarantee that our knowledge and experience will survive.”
How I long for a world where ebooks and real books live together in harmony. As one.
