COMMENT: National Libraries' Day

Today is Narional Libraries' Day in the UK, though you'd be excused if you were unaware of this fact, it's not had a huge amount of publicity - which is odd, given the amount of coverage, twittering, campaigns, etc. that happened last year when cuts to library services were announced.

Public libraries are long overdue an overhaul. They live in a cosy, caring late Victorian age with little sense that the world has changed.

Sure, most have computers and Internet access, many lend CDs and DVDs, some now offee ebooks loans, and there's been various other innovations that have moved libraries slowly forward in time but, really, is the modern public library fit for purpose? And do we get value for money for the amount of tax payers money paid into these institutions?

I'd suggest that the various technological changes are a superficial sheen that mask the fact that, in reality, most public libraries are the same as they have been for over a century.

Let's look at what's on the shelves.

Why should my taxes be used to allow someone to read a Katie Price or Jilly Cooper novel? Why should libraries stock any pulp fiction? Novels are so cheap these days I don't see any justification for libraries paying for copies. Perhaps novels as ebooks - at a fee - makes sense but libraries stocking large amounts of storybooks is just a silly waste of money.

Then there's the net access offered in libraries. Maybe the expense should be put into helping everyone have Internet access at home?

I can see an argument for chikdren's books in libraries, they get through a lot very quickly, but this could, and should, be done via their nursery and school.

The idea of libraries lending CDs and DVDs, an idea which must have seemed revolutionary when it began, is just preposterous in the modern world. Music and video are so easily and cheaply accessible everywhere there can be no justification for libraries to offer them. Librarians may as well just stand behind their counter and burn £10 notes.

I think there is a place for towns and cities to have a library but it needs to be fundamentally different from the wasteful system we currently have.

I'd suggest an Information Hub - that would include Citizen's Advice Bureau, Council Information, a reference library, etc. Scrap the wastefulness, scrap the things that can't be justified or are easily available cheaply, or free, elsewhere and focus on things that make sense.

Libraries are still firmly rooted in the society of beneficial industrialists and where books weren't available so easily and cheaply. Times have changed. It's time that libraries caught up and stopped wasting tax payers' money.