Libraries

[bunn]

 Caught a section on the radio earlier today about the library closure protests. They were saying: use them or lose them. 

This is a call to action that works well for, say, local pubs or milkmen.  I don't think it should necessarily apply to libraries though. I live in a rural area, and am currently,  relatively time-poor and shelf-rich.  It makes sense for me to buy books rather than driving to a library during opening hours.   I am not a customer that particularly needs a library at present: in fact, using one would be something of a pain. 

However, I have certainly been shelf-poor and time-rich (or more conveniently located) in the past, and very likely will be again in future.  The fact that I am not using the library much *now* should not be interpreted as a vote to close the place!  

 I'm not using the local primary school, police station, hospital or prison either, but nobody thinks that means I never will.   Surely public services should be used primarily by those that need them, not by those that merely think that they should remain open...?

Comments

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, library funding is worked out in terms of who is using them now. Eg when deciding which books should be got rid of, if they've been borrowed less than a certain number of times in a certain period, they get withdrawn. It's not terribly practical to think of it in terms of person x MIGHT want that at time Y... No space, for one thing

And libraries aren't static. It drives me nuts when weasely local councillors talk about volunteers running them and so on. Libraries aren't just rooms with books. Someone has to order what's wanted by those borrowers at that time, process, catalogue, organise. What about providing new reference materials and removing outdated ones or dealing with licensing online reference sources etc?

So you might well want to use a library in the future - this is a very good thing - but it won't be the library/collection that is there today. And unfortunately, that's the one that's for the chop and is unlikely to be replaced adequately, if at all.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know that is how they are funded, and how the decisions are made - what I'm saying is that I think it's a bad way of doing it. Too mechanical.

I don't expect (or want) them to be static, but I would rather like them to be *there*, without me having to make a great point of trotting in and out carrying books that I don't need at the moment, just to make the numbers add up.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... I meant to say, that I do think volunteers probably could achieve a great deal more than just sitting in a room with books in and stamping them in and out. Volunteers can do amazing things, and I'm not against the idea of volunteer involvment per se. I do think that people tend to expect everything to be done for them, and maybe that's not ideal.

But one cannot expect to go from a state-funded professional library system to a even reasonably acceptable effective volunteer-run one in months without support, for free, even if that transition were definitely desirable and workable ( I'm not at all sure it is). So my final conclusion is the same as yours. :-(

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting it's rocket science, but there is a big difference between what a professional librarian does and what the assistants do. So volunteers can (and do) do great work to keep libraries going, but it is more likely to equate to replacing library assistants. I'm a chartered librarian and that meant an MA course in library/info studies and then two years in-post completing a further training programme and a portfolio showing my professional development. And that isn't something that you can or should replace with someone in off the street.

Also, I do agree it would be lovely if services ran until you happened to want them, but in a cruel hard world of budget cutting and costing, it's not only libraries that don't work like that!

it would be lovely if services ran until you happened to want them,

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's not really what I am saying. My point is that you can support the existence of a service without being a user of that service. Even if I as an individual never entered a library again (which if I was rich enough, I might well not!), I think it would be a good idea for society in general to have libraries, and for me to contribute to funding them. It's not particularly that I want them for my own use in future.

I don't see how my going to a library does anything other than tick boxes: that doesn't make me into someone who needs a library.

In the same way, I am happily childfree, and will probably never have any need in future for any kind of state schooling - and in fact, I am privately educated. But for my elected representatives to assume from that that I support the abolition of publicly funded schools would be something of a leap. I want other people's children to be educated, even though I am not a user of the service myself.

I liked inzilbeth_liz point about not needing to support the fire service & A&E by setting self on fire ;-D

re: library qualifications: I have a similar qualification in museum studies, (though I don't use it), and worked in a college library, many years ago. If I volunteered in a museum again, then I would have similar qualifications to the curatorial staff (though my experience would be way out of date). It would be quite a stretch to find enough suitably qualified people who were happy to work for free though.

I suppose you could have volunteer fundraisers who would raise money that would then pay for so many hours of time from a freelance professional librarian. Not that fundraising is exactly easy-peasy work either.

Re: it would be lovely if services ran until you happened to want them,

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

A&E and the fire service are funded by looking at past use and projecting further requirements (more or less) so they are (sort of) working on the assumption that a given number of people will need a particular sort of help over a particular time period. Schools plan on projected population patterns and assuming some people won't have kids (boy did they get that one wrong round here). But I'm still not 100% convinced that you can plan ANY public service to be fit for purpose on the assumption someone might at some time want something from it.

I'm sorry to sound stroppy here, but I have a big problem with the idea that volunteers can simply step in and replace trained professional staff. If a volunteer, who had put the same effort to get the same qualifications, has the priviliged position of being able to work for free, where does that leave the rest who gained those qualifications thinking it was part of a career path? On the bloody supermarket checkout forever, perhaps?

I have a big problem with the idea that volunteers can simply step in and replace trained profession

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Didnt' say that they could - only that maybe there is space for volunteering in there somewhere.

Re the qualifications though, I think that's the 'where does it leave people thinking it was a career path' is just the gamble you take with qualifications. It would be nice if you could be sure the qualification was going to mean a job, but it just doesn't, unless it's in a field where there aren't many people.

There are a *lot* of people with museums qualifications now working, like me, in IT and its related fields, because when it comes down to it, there are a lot more jobs in IT than there are in museums, and the qualifications give you skills that are useful in both. I remember attending a conference a few years back when I was in the bar chatting to about 6 people, and it turned out all of us had fled the museum field...

If you want work that isn't short-term contract work and can't afford to work for free or very little, then in such a very small and competitive field, I found I was an immediate disadvantage compared with the people that are prepared to drop everything and travel anywhere to live in a single room to get six month's worth of work (or, live off Daddy and work for free till you finally get appointed to a decent job). I concluded that I just didn't want it quite that badly. :-/

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

(pardon late comment, I'm always behindhand with lj. Also OTT really.) " Eg when deciding which books should be got rid of, if they've been borrowed less than a certain number of times in a certain period, they get withdrawn." LOL, I remember working that out when I was 10, when I deduced I was the only person ever withdrawing my then-favourite library book (bear in mind this was pre-computers, so all they had to go on was the number/recentness of date-stamps in the front of the book.) So I made a heroic effort to stop getting it out, waited on tenterhooks, and sure enough it eventually turned up on the 'withdrawn books for sale' trolley, whereupon I pounced! And it's still in my collection today :-) (I figure this wasn't bad for the library since it freed up some stock room/shelf space for a book that would be borrowed by more than one person.)