Tory Lunacy: Libraries
So there will be some re-shaping of library services but I do think it is important that we think imaginatively about where libraries could be. I wouldn’t even have a problem, for example, if there was a library in a pub.
- Ed Vaizey, Minster for Culture, quoted here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2010/08/what_next_for_the_local_librar.html
AW: This is a particularly idiotic statement which is in fact contradicted by Vaizey on his ‘Future Libraries Programme’ website:
A strong library service, based around the needs of local people, can play a key role in our ambitions to build the Big Society by providing safe and inclusive spaces for people to read, learn and access a range of community services.
AW: The key phrase there is ‘spaces for people’. A pub, supermarket, or bus could potential be a place to read, access books, learning and other facilities, but lack the unique characteristics of real library buildings. Libraries serve the public by offering a unique type of place, distinguished by being free, calm, (often but not necessarily) quiet (all the time), full of books and other resources, and with helpful but unimposing staff. Often the architecture is also important in creating the mood and helping thought, concentration, inspiration or relaxation. Being able to borrow books from the supermarket may be convenient (though traditional libraries are designed to be convenient too) but sitting in a supermarket is just sitting in a supermarket. Weird, lonely, isolating and depressing. Sitting in a library is something special.
