Library Day In The Life, Round 7, 25-31 July 2011

This post was written as part of the “Library Day In The Life” project. “The Library Day in the Life Project is a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, [...]

Surrey Libraries Campaigners Lobby At County Hall

Issues surrounding Surrey County Council plans for the future of the library service have been raised at County Hall twice in the past two weeks. Last week (19 July 2011) a motion was raised by Councillor Eber Kington at the Council meeting (2hr 35mins), requesting that “the Council Leader and Cabinet… halt the current plans [...]

Libraries: A Brand You Can Trust

“Libraries will continue to be a brand people can trust.” (Coventry Telegraph: Library jobs could go in £2m budget cuts) This quote, taken from a Warwickshire County Council report, just popped the simple thought into my head, “If libraries are a trusted brand, then why don’t more people use them?” I’m not insinuating in this [...]

Library Closures: Not Saving Money… Displacing It

“No one wants to see libraries cut and I understand that Devon County Council are in tough financial times. However, it is foolish to see this as an economy. If you reduce access to literacy you will end up paying for it in the future in terms of, for example, extra adult education – it’s [...]

Proposed Motion to Halt Changes to Surrey Library Service

Residents in Surrey have sent an open letter to all councillors in the county, questioning the validity of the study proposing the closure of some libraries. Issues of concern around the study include wrong and inconsistent figures, incorrect rankings of some libraries, incorrect proximity measurements (ie distance between libraries), illogical comparisons, lack of consideration of specific [...]

Report of the Inquiry into Overcoming the Barriers to Literacy

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Education has just published a “Report of the Inquiry into Overcoming the Barriers to Literacy.” As literacy and libraries go hand in hand it is encouraging to see so much emphasis on the value of libraries within the report. In defining the context of the inquiry it was indicated that “a poverty of [...]

New Improved Paper.li Lets You Manage Your Papers

Since setting up a paper.li newspaper earlier this year for Voices For The Library, I’ve been experimenting with it some more. In case you don’t know, paper.li creates an online newspaper, bringing together links pulled out of tweets or Facebook accounts, based upon searches you set up. It acts as an aggregator of information, keeps [...]