Do Libraries Have A Place In Modern Britain?

[expire-ed]

I read this earlier, and wondered what people thought:

http://www.themillions.com/2017/06/austerity-and-the-british-library.html

With the closure of hundreds of libraries over the last few years, do we think we're seeing the end of these community knowledge hubs?

Here's a bit on the closing of libraries last year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35707956

Do you still use the library? In what capacity?

I confess to not having been in a library for a long time, as it's often not really my crowd (the books I like I new, and literary - and most of the non-fiction I want can be bought cheap or found online for free).

And yet, I am sad at the idea of them closing.

Thoughts?

[Eleena]

Don't let Murray hear you say that alba ... (Jackie) ;0)

[albaqwerty]

oh, and Nancy Drew !

I remember one time I was reading a series of books and wasn't able to buy/be given one as a gift for some strange reason, so Mum requested it from library.
Was most upset when it was time to return it lol

[albaqwerty]

I won't Ele, I won't !!

[Eleena]

Aww :0)

[Jackdaw33]

My only complaint about modern libraries is that they are no longer the havens of silence they once were.

[expire-ed]

That would annoy me Jack. I used to enjoy going down to the journal archives where the silence was even more pronounced. Silence is to be cherished.

Thank you for the welcome albaqwerty! I'm sure I'll find my way round in the end.

It is very heartening to find that old institutions are being used - even if it is by the crime-lit junkies!

[Eleena]

No I can imagine they're not jackdaw, times are different. I used to always respect that when I went with my children years ago. You'll have to get some earplugs.

[albaqwerty]

The library I mentioned previously, in the 'big town' has 2 areas, one room where the modern stuff is and you can talk , opposite that, across the corridor is the shush-don't-say-a-word room.
Both clearly marked but both as welcoming

[Jackdaw33]

To go into a library was like going into church, you only spoke in hushed whispers

[Eleena]

Do people respect the signs alba?

[Eleena]

That's how it used to be jackdaw, we treated it with reverence, maybe because we were that grateful to have it! People are still grateful, but times have changed a lot.

[albaqwerty]

They do Ele, which lovely to see.
The shush room is used by intellectuals and students :-)

Even on entering the building, a change comes over the visitors before they turn right or left.

[expire-ed]

For those speaking about a broadening of their reading range - I suppose I do it through subscriptions such as Fitzcarraldo Editions and a couple of literary mags (A Public Space, Granta)

And then things that kind of get recommended?

I don't know how current library catalogues are?

https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/subscribe

https://apublicspace.org/

https://granta.com/

[Eleena]

That's good x

[albaqwerty]

will have a look at those links later Exp
(hope you don't mind the abbreviation, most of us do it, I'm either Alba (or labs when folk get their fingers in a twist) or alba

I would imagine the catalogues are as bang up to date as they can be.

I remember going into library and requesting a copy of a book which I would have liked to have read.
The was one edition in the whole of Renfrewshire, quite a long waiting list too.
As you'd imagine.

[shaneystar2]

I live in Norfolk and the Norwich Millennium Library topped the poll in 2013 of the most visited library in the country with 1,273,416 visitors and I doubt that number has gone down at all because of the UEA.
Another little snippet of info ,crime fiction is the most borrowed.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/05/fiction-runs-away-with-uk-library-loans-lee-child

[Eleena]

What do libraries provide these days besides books. I know rooms can be hired out, guest speakers, internet access, children's days, DVD/ CD loans still? I have to go out for little un now. Back later, or may be not ... May be much later after she's gone home, bye, nice chatting!

[albaqwerty]

lovely chatting with you too Ele xx

Haven't noticed their dvd/cd collection recently, but think they still do it. I'll have a nosy tomorrow.

[zebo]

I use our small town library to access bits of Ancestry that my subscription doesn't allow and to borrow travel guides for our trips, the computer section is always packed and other activities take place in there as well as children's story-telling. The main Norfolk Library in Norwich, The Forum, is wonderful and always well used so, yes, I do think there's a place for them. It's been suggested, not on AB, that they are elitist by which I assume the critic means they are used by people of intelligence, and we can't have that, can we?

[expire-ed]

shaneystar2 - is that borrowed or "borrowed"? (Because they're crime novels, see? No? I'll get my coat.)