Unions In Belfast have protested at a plan to close up to 15 libraries in the Northern Ireland capital. The Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) said on there website:-
NIPSA intends to oppose the radical and wholesale dissemination of the public library provision in the Greater Belfast Area. It is appalling that only 9 months after the creation of the new NI Regional Library Authority that they are planning to remove 45% of the public library provision mostly in areas of high social deprivation. NIPSA is encouraging all library users, political representatives and other interested groups and parties to actively support the NIPSA campaign to oppose these radical cuts to library provision in the Greater Belfast Area.
Lets hope it get overturned like it did in the Wirral.
Showing posts with label wirral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wirral. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
5 UK Library stories of 2009
Following on from from lisnews Ten Stories That Shaped 2009, I thought I would do my 5 UK stories.
1. Cilip 2.0. This was a discussion started by Brian Kelly & Phil Bradley which looked at Cilip Bob McKee failure to take on board some of the web 2.0 technologies within CILIP. The power of the network caused Cilip to rethink there policy and have an open forum on the event in April and produce a draft paper on the subject.
2. Woodsiegirl meme on 'why i became a librarian. I like blogging because sometime one persons post can spiral into a bigger discussion (see above). Well blogger Woodsie girl discussed why she became a librarian. A few others started adding there reasons why and the wikiman made a wiki for others to enter and discuss the subject on. This was actually pretty life affirming and a great idea.
3. Many had heard that Wirral maybe closing many libraries in that area. Thankfully all 11 were saved. Many local people voiced there concern on the closures, making politicans back down (for the moment).
4. Most stupid idea of the year? Culture minister Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should link up with internet bookseller Amazon. Um, people go to libraries so they don't have to pay and store it. A library and a bookseller are two divergent markets and its not possible for one to be the other without major changes in the organisation (read money).
5. UK mashup still going strong. It was good to see many librarians meet this year for two mashups in Huddersfield and Birmingham. I went to the Huddersfield one and was really great to see a profession working to help our users experience (and learn something to).
Anyhow, thats my top 5? Anybody have any others?
1. Cilip 2.0. This was a discussion started by Brian Kelly & Phil Bradley which looked at Cilip Bob McKee failure to take on board some of the web 2.0 technologies within CILIP. The power of the network caused Cilip to rethink there policy and have an open forum on the event in April and produce a draft paper on the subject.
2. Woodsiegirl meme on 'why i became a librarian. I like blogging because sometime one persons post can spiral into a bigger discussion (see above). Well blogger Woodsie girl discussed why she became a librarian. A few others started adding there reasons why and the wikiman made a wiki for others to enter and discuss the subject on. This was actually pretty life affirming and a great idea.
3. Many had heard that Wirral maybe closing many libraries in that area. Thankfully all 11 were saved. Many local people voiced there concern on the closures, making politicans back down (for the moment).
4. Most stupid idea of the year? Culture minister Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should link up with internet bookseller Amazon. Um, people go to libraries so they don't have to pay and store it. A library and a bookseller are two divergent markets and its not possible for one to be the other without major changes in the organisation (read money).
5. UK mashup still going strong. It was good to see many librarians meet this year for two mashups in Huddersfield and Birmingham. I went to the Huddersfield one and was really great to see a profession working to help our users experience (and learn something to).
Anyhow, thats my top 5? Anybody have any others?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Cilip blog disregards legitimate arguments......Again
Having read and posted about the Observer article on sunday, it was great to see the Cilip blog discuss it. Whoops, I mean disregard it. The article entitled Stop talking to each other, start talking to the media, or expect more bad headlines again disregards what librarians are saying about how we should enhance our profession (nothing unusual there then).
I am astonished at what Elspeth Hyams says of the article. Actually she says nothing of the article and its core content. Her opening gambit is this:-
Frustrating headlines like 'Time to go into battle to save our world of books' in the Observer newspaper or '‘MLA and DCMS “increasingly anti-book” on the Bookseller’s blog are a consequence of librarians talking to each other – but not to the national media.
Does she mention Cooke discussing the loss of service at the Wirral ? Or the utter vapidness of the Idea Store? The Library Minister idea on making libraries the '3d facebook' with noise to accompany it?
Nope, none of these are mentioned at all.
She does point out her problems with not being able to get a book from Haringey libraries even though they thought they had it. But the irony of her statement was as follows:-
Middle class people are passionate about libraries. But unless they are pensioners (preferably, white female ones) or middle aged, they don’t use libraries much, say most public librarians in my circle.
She's discussing Haringey and feel they are like this? Well, I think that maybe due to her live here or here and not here or here as these where very diverse in age and race (I worked there before you retort).
Elspeth also forgets Cooke's arguments 'Expenditure on books in our libraries is below 8% of the total public library funds, and in inner London that figure is just 5.7% (across the country, councils spend just 1.6% of their funding on children's books; several councils, Hackney and Doncaster among them, spend less than 1%). ' Her response to this is the laudable conclusion that:-
I’m one of the chattering classes myself, so the moral of this story? Think ahead! Friends of libraries like me will comment when the service doesn’t meet our expectations. So don’t ignore your well-heeled media-savvy champions (let alone journalists). And insist on training for staff!
Training? Pray, who should we go to for training? Oh, Cilip perhaps? I mean thats WHO YOU WORK FOR.
You seem to feel that there is no quality staff in libraries, but at Marcus Garvey and North Library I was inspired by great managers and staff, who gave a great service. Ironically too, none of them belonged to Cilip, so perhaps its not just libraries that need to be better at promoting themselves, perhaps it should be Cilip. But then when do they listen ?
I am astonished at what Elspeth Hyams says of the article. Actually she says nothing of the article and its core content. Her opening gambit is this:-
Frustrating headlines like 'Time to go into battle to save our world of books' in the Observer newspaper or '‘MLA and DCMS “increasingly anti-book” on the Bookseller’s blog are a consequence of librarians talking to each other – but not to the national media.
Does she mention Cooke discussing the loss of service at the Wirral ? Or the utter vapidness of the Idea Store? The Library Minister idea on making libraries the '3d facebook' with noise to accompany it?
Nope, none of these are mentioned at all.
She does point out her problems with not being able to get a book from Haringey libraries even though they thought they had it. But the irony of her statement was as follows:-
Middle class people are passionate about libraries. But unless they are pensioners (preferably, white female ones) or middle aged, they don’t use libraries much, say most public librarians in my circle.
She's discussing Haringey and feel they are like this? Well, I think that maybe due to her live here or here and not here or here as these where very diverse in age and race (I worked there before you retort).
Elspeth also forgets Cooke's arguments 'Expenditure on books in our libraries is below 8% of the total public library funds, and in inner London that figure is just 5.7% (across the country, councils spend just 1.6% of their funding on children's books; several councils, Hackney and Doncaster among them, spend less than 1%). ' Her response to this is the laudable conclusion that:-
I’m one of the chattering classes myself, so the moral of this story? Think ahead! Friends of libraries like me will comment when the service doesn’t meet our expectations. So don’t ignore your well-heeled media-savvy champions (let alone journalists). And insist on training for staff!
Training? Pray, who should we go to for training? Oh, Cilip perhaps? I mean thats WHO YOU WORK FOR.
You seem to feel that there is no quality staff in libraries, but at Marcus Garvey and North Library I was inspired by great managers and staff, who gave a great service. Ironically too, none of them belonged to Cilip, so perhaps its not just libraries that need to be better at promoting themselves, perhaps it should be Cilip. But then when do they listen ?
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