By the book (Library services)

Member Name: collingwood21

Product:	Library services
Date:	09/06/01 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than buying books, Range of services available, Free to join

Disadvantages: You met some very strange people in libraries, The great library black hole, where books disappear, never to return

Last year, public libraries celebrated their 150th anniversary, and events were held nationwide to mark this achievement. However, I feel that most people reading this will have been blissfully unaware that any such landmark had been reached, mainly because use of the library service has been in steady decline for a number of years now. I am writing this op both as a regular borrower and as an employee of a reasonably large public library, so I have seen both sides of the service, and I hope that my evaluation of it reflects this.

To start of with, I intend to cover what the modern library service offers its customers. The traditional view of it is that we provide books only – people come in once a fortnight to exchange their Catherine Cooksons, and pick up a few Mills & Boon while they are there. Yes, we do this, but it is only a very small part of what is on offer. At a main library, you can expect a substantial range of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books (although please understand that I use the word “substantial” in a relative sense; some people will never be satisfied with the choice available!); a book requesting service; access to PCs and the internet; an open learning section with study packs for various courses; photocopying; fax facilities; reference books; language tapes; a local studies section, and a selection of newspapers and magazines. Recent developments also mean that many libraries also have specialist collections available, such as business services, music scores or foreign language books, as well as recorded music (tapes and increasingly CDs) and videos (classic dramas and non-fiction programmes mostly). Although most of these services are free, charges are of course in place for photocopying (usually 10p/sheet) and fax (charges vary), internet access (about £2 to £4/hour), requests and hire for music and videos (around 60p).

Unfortunately, I have found that a lot of people get angry whe
n they find that we dare to implement hire charges and request fees, as the library is perceived as being an entirely free service – strangely enough, the same people would not think twice about spending £2.50 for one nights rental at Blockbuster. Is 60p for two weeks video or CD hire really asking that much? And the request fee is simply an admin charge, or more accurately a partial admin charge as it costs the service a lot more than this, especially for inter-library loans. Personally, I think this represents pretty good value for money!

So why, despite the range of services on offer, does use of libraries continue to fall? This is something we are continually asking ourselves, and an issue that we do try and tackle in order to provide the best possible service we can, which benefits the most people within the budget that we are allocated. The most likely reasons are firstly that people simply don’t read as much as they used to, as they now have Sky, Playstations, DVDs, etc, and secondly that colleges now have their own well-equipped libraries, so students do not need to use the public ones as much. However, as the existence and success of sites such as dooyoo suggests, perhaps it is not so much that we are reading less, but simply that our reading habits have changed. With the appearance of the first e-books, it has been predicted that libraries will only continue to decline and cease to exist as we know them within our lifetimes. Personally though, I find this to be a bit pessimistic – although the e-revolution has undoubtedly changed the way that we access information, ultimately, you can’t curl up with a good PC at the end of a long day, so I think that the novel is quite safe for the time being.

However, I do think that there are ways in which most libraries could be improved. Anyone who has been into a library will surely be aware of the Dewey system of classifying non-fiction books – each categ
ory is allocated a number between 000 and 999 and shelved accordingly (for example, geography is at 910 and psychology is at 150). While this does mean that we have a relatively simple, universal classification system that makes it easy to shelve books, to anyone unfamiliar with it, it can be very difficult to actually find the section you want if you don’t know the number of it. I think that most libraries could benefit from having a list of all subject categories in alphabetical order that the public could use to look up the number of the section they wanted. Therefore, borrowers find the books they want themselves, freeing staff to get on with other tasks such as shelving, tidying and doing requests (especially important as most libraries are understaffed anyway, and this approach is relatively cheap to implement).

Another improvement I would like to see is the powers that be getting tougher on people who don’t return books (which is, in effect, stealing them). Currently, there is a system in my library (and I’m sure it is the same elsewhere) where letters are sent out for non-returned books, followed by a bill and a final demand – but if all three are ignored, then that is it; we can’t actually force people to return items or pay up for them. Prosecution rarely happens as it costs more to take someone to court than the value of the items recovered. Result: people learn that if they nick stuff from the library then sod all will happen and they can get away with it; the library continues to lose stock and money, and honest borrowers lose out. However, I am sure that a couple of high profile prosecutions in the local media would soon make people think twice about stealing our stock, and items might even start magically reappearing on our shelves! I think that this would certainly be an approach worth trying, if nothing else.

On a lighter note, though, I can certainly say that working in a library is never du
ll. The public library has something of a reputation for being a weirdo magnet – a dry, warm building that is open all day to anybody to cares to wander in off the street (and they usually do). Your average library can be found to play host to a selection of local oddballs, while sometimes worrying (drunks, angry drunks, whoever left the used condoms in the reference section) are normally harmless. I once came across a man who confessed to me that he had had an accident with one of our books – having split some water on it, he decided to dry the item out by microwaving it. Clearly he was unaware of the metal security tag in the back of the book – and we all know what happens when we put metal in the microwave, don’t we boys and girls? To be fair to the man though, he was very apologetic and actually returned the charred remains of the book to us (personally, I think I would just have said I had lost it!) and we did later get a replacement copy from him. So you see, however stupid you may think you are, there is always someone out there who is infinitely dumber!

© 2001, collingwood21

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