Fight for the right to read and write (Library services)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Library services
Date:	22/08/01 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free access (and borrowing of books), Open to all, Kidderminster library used to be excellent

Disadvantages: Net access is too restrictive, No toilets in Worcs libraries, Mobile phones...

***Updated*** 03/03/02 - see the end of the op

Ah, the library. Perhaps the most underrated public service of all. People often seem to take the service for granted, but think about it - where else can one research, learn, relax, discuss, laugh, cry and stay out of the rain as it buckets down for hours on end? And all without charge. Well, okay, you do have to pay for certain services, but your actual reading is free. Surely only those highly odd people we all read about in the paper from time to time - you know, the ones who say, "I don't have a book in the house" and suchlike - could fail to be impressed by that.

Now, the library service of which I am a member is that of Worcestershire, so that's what I'll concentrate on in this op. The first thing in favour of Worcestershire's service is its liberal definition of who is eligible to join. You can join if you live, work, are educated or own property in the county, or indeed in any neighbouring authority. This last criterion is mainly to cater for the people of Herefordshire, who might otherwise have got a raw deal since Hereford & Worcester broke up in 1997, but it's also useful if you live in south Shropshire, for example.

Worcestershire's libraries vary greatly in terms of size and facilities, as one might expect in such a diverse county. The pride of the fleet, as it were, is the gleaming new Kidderminster Library, which has been an almost unmitigated success, squashing very quickly the many complaints about the demolition of the stately old Tomkinson Library a few years earlier. It offers almost the full range of services - books, tapes, CDs, videos (not DVDs - yet), internet, telephone, fax and microfiche machines that actually work. There's a good reference department, of which one part is exceptional - Kidderminster being the home of carpet-weaving, of course (don't tell the people of Axminster!), there's a quite superb Carpet Studies c
ollection, essential for anyone who needs to know the type of blades used in Brintons' Gripper Spool looms in 1923...

The library also hosts a very useful Council Shop, where you can go and whinge about potholes, and a European Information Centre. I haven't tried that, but I assume it's where you go complain about your banana being too curved... what Kidderminster, rather surprisingly, doesn't offer is a CD-ROM lending service - you have to go to Redditch for that, which is a bit of a pain. Still, at least it's properly accessible, with lifts to all floors and braille signs. Thee's even a comprehensible Tannoy system, though this tends only to be used for "we are closing in ten minutes" announcements.

There are problems with the library - for one thing, the expanses of glass in the roof are all very well, but it does make the place very hot in summer. Still, at least the architects went for windows that actually open rather than the inflexible air-conditioning systems which seem to obsess many modern companies. Another example of slightly dodgy design is that any talking in the stairwell echoes around like you wouldn't believe, which, as the top floor is often used for functions and coffee mornings (with live piano!) is a problem quite often. There are, of course, no toilets - no library in Worcs has them, which is very annoying - and no refreshment facilities whatsoever. And *don't* get me started on those idiots who are too thick to understand what "Turn your mobile phone OFF when in the library" means - come on, Worcs, start enforcing the damn rule! I'm not a cruel man - 18 months in an open prison should be a sufficient sentence for this....

Worcestershire is a little unusual in that the county town's library is not all that brilliant. The main problem is that it is squashed into the ground floor of the cramped Victorian building that houses the Worcester Museum and Art Galler
y. It's also rather inconveniently located, some way from the city centre. Every so often there's a half-baked proposal to build a Kidderminster-style "super-libe" (can I trademark that word?) nearer the centre, but things tend to run into the sand fairly quickly when someone points out that to accommodate the expansive blueprints 47 listed buildings would have to be blown up and fourteen schools and two hospitals flattened....

As to the other libraries: there are 22 in total, so I shan't bore you more than I'm doing already by going through every one. Suffice it to say that they can be roughly divided into three groups: the large libraries such as Kidderminster and Redditch which do more or less everything; the medium-sized places such as Stourport, which have reasonable opening hours and a good range of books, but not too much more than that; and the small local libraries such as Woodrow and Cofton Hackett, which have quite restricted facilities and open no more than four days a week.

Still, this is better than a lot of places, and in fact, the library service in the county has been quite buoyant of late. Kidderminster, especially, has a better and more regularly supplemented stock of new books than most libraries, and opening hours around the county have been extended quite significantly - extra evening opening, longer hours on Saturdays and no more shutting for lunch in my nearest library!

Internet facilities are something which library services are forever banging on about, but to be honest I hardly ever use them, as there are just too many restrictions. I don't have any problem with the eminently sensible ban on bringing in one's own floppy disks, but I do find it annoying that one can't use the net in the way I most often need it during research - to spend two minutes looking up a specific point. In the early days of net terminals in our libraries, there was a "turn up and go" machine
near the front desk, which was incredibly useful, but sadly in recent months, for whatever reason, this facility has ceased. You now have to book in half-hour chunks well in advance, and, perhaps worse, you have to be a member of the library. One of the great glories of public library research is that someone from (say) Gwynedd can visit Worcestershire and do their work freely, without all that messing about with letters of introduction that is needed for studying in university libraries - to have this restricted so severely is a great shame. I don't really think library net services can reach their full potential if one has to know the exact extent of one's research two days in advance!

The cornerstone of the public library system, however, is something much more well-established - the free lending of books. I think that introducing a charge - any charge - for this would be a complete disaster, and would fundamentally undermine the library's role as a public service rather than a business, much in the same way as introducing charges to visit the GP would deal a potentially fatal blow to the NHS. The individual charge might be minimal for most people (in which case, surely the cost of administration would make it pointless), but it would soon mount up, especially if one had the full quota of twelve books out.

Of course, the idea of charging is not entirely alien to Worcestershire's libraries. Apart from fines (16p a day here - one of the highest in the country!), there are charges for cassettes, CDs (about a pound each) and videos (either £1 or £2, depending on length). Mention of videos leads me to one of Worcestershire's best points: videos can be kept out for a week, which is considerably longer than your local Blockbuster! It makes so much difference when the pressure to slog through Titanic in one night disappears - after all, you can't be expected to spot all the continuity errors in one viewing.

Like most lib
rary services, Worcestershire runs an online catalogue system, known somewhat unimaginatively as OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue). You can get at it from within the libraries themselves, of course, but there's also a web version available via the main website, which has all the features of the in-house one other than access to the Herefordshire catalogue (a relic of the split in 1997). It's one of the better ones, allowing searches not only by title and author, but also by classmark and subject, which can be very useful. I've never quite understood why Birmingham's equivalent system has these two options greyed out and unavailable - it's very frustrating indeed. OPAC is a simple system, but is straightforward to use and efficient. You can also check your current loans and reservations via OPAC.

As will be evident from the tone of the above, I believe that a well-run public library system is absolutely vital if the term "public service" is to have any real meaning. There can't be a better value service provided anywhere in local government, and it's essential that it is maintained at a high level - cuts in this area are bound to cause major problems down the line. A warning, though: by all means bring in innovative... er... innovations, but remember that the core of the service must remain a good stock of books. Oh, and if I may indulge myself right at the end of this piece with a small request to my fellow library users - please, *please* don't whistle in the library, whether tunelessly or otherwise; it's almost as annoying as those accursed mobile phones, which really is saying something.

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Worcestershire Library Services website:
http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/libraries/hom epage.htm
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***UPDATE: 3rd March 2002***

Sadly, things in Kidderminster are no longer quite so satisfactory as once t
hey were (hence my downgrading from the original 5 to 4 stars). The main cause of this is that old local newspaper standby, "Council Cash Crisis Looms!". In other words, the authority has used up the "kick-start" money it had at the library's opening, and is having to buy many fewer books. Worse still, they are being forced to sell off perfectly good, recent and often borrowed books in their sales just to make ends (nearly meet). Every time I go into Kiddy library now, the proportion of empty shelving seems to have got bigger. It's a sad sight, as is the meagre fare usually available on the "New Books" shelf.

What really irritates me about this, though, is that at the same time as the book stock (especially non-fiction) is being reduced to the point of inadequacy, the powers that be are getting more and more obsessed with the cure-all properties of information technology. Where once stood shelves of books, there are now Ikea-style pinewood desks and computer terminals. This is mad: a shelf of books is of far more use. Why? Consider this: if a bookcase contains 100 volumes of a periodical, then (at least in theory) 100 people can refer to it at the same time. But if this bookcase is replaced by 2 PCs with a couple of CD-ROMs, then only two people can use it. And of course there's the compulsory booking I referred to earlier. I'm all in favour of libraries providing computers and so on, but this dreadful sidelining of books in favour of IT at all costs has got to stop.

I have, however, discovered a shining beacon in the gloom of encroaching night. Stourbridge library, a mere £1.80 trip on the train, has stuck to its core values: the place is packed with vast numbers of - wait for it - *books*. Big books, small books, new books, old books. (Incidentally, I am infuriated by those libraries that judge what to retain purely on the basis of age. Time and time again, I have found what I am looking for in a 20-y
ear-old volume.) I can't borrow books, as the place is in Dudley's area of influence, but it's of small concern, as the reference library is excellent. (It's where I did my research for my "Great Moon Hoax" article - all the works mentioned in my references were to be found on Stourbridge's shelves.) All in all, it's a delight to use.

Stourbridge library has even managed to achieve the impossible: making me find mobile phones less irritating. They have taken the brave step of *allowing* mobiles in the lending library, while banishing them utterly from the reference library. Amazingly, it works: *fewer* people use their mobiles here than at Kidderminster or Birmingham, and when they do they're almost always considerate of other library users. We still have to suffer the other main aspects of antisocial libraritude(!) - Walkman Bloke (yes, we *can* hear it, and yes, it *is* annoying - **very**) and the lesser spotted crisp guzzler; but in the main one can get on with one's work fairly well.

I still believe passionately in the public library network, and utterly deplore those authorities that see it as a lesser priority. I'm of the opinion that libraries are quite possibly *the* most important service a county council provides, even more so than running the schools. We should be thoroughly proud of the fact that they are not temples to Mammon: the setting up of the system, giving to the ordinary person the chance to better themselves without the burden of cost was a supremely far-sighted, even heroic move. It would be a disgrace beyond all measure if we who have benefited from it let it fade away.

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