Reducing library funding

is not right. It is wrong, very wrong.

One of our local library staff stopped me in the street yesterday to tell me that there has been a move to reduce library funding across the state. They knew I would be "concerned". 

Concerned? I am angry. Do governments have no idea how much our libraries get used.

I know I have written about this before but it really is true that more people use libraries each week than go to a football match. It is also true  that good library services actually save money.

I was in the library on Saturday. The Scrabble group was meeting. I could hear chatter about a word someone had just used and where people had heard the word used in the past.  That is surely helping at least a few extend their vocabulary? It is certainly getting them out of the house, making them use their minds in all sorts of ways. There were also two teenagers working together on a maths problem, a number of people reading newspapers, three younger children sitting on the floor and reading books and at least five primary age children talking together about a book one of them had just read. In among the adult section there were people choosing books, DVDs, magazines and more.  One person I know by sight asked me if I had read a particular book and, if so, did I recommend it. Another person was listening in and asked if I knew something else. 

We all managed to do it in the approved mask wearing, socially distanced manner.  It was the most social contact the first inquirer had been able to have all week. His wife has Alzheimer's and his daughter was at home with her for a few hours to give him a break.

I saw someone else I know has been battling against loneliness and severe depression.  Having the library open has been the difference between being able to stay at home or go into hospital for her. She admitted this to me in the park outside the library. Yes, I'll stop and chat for a few minutes if she wants to talk to someone.

There are book groups and French classes, robotics (a mystery to me but full of young people), book launches, meetings of all sorts and more. Even with all the Covid19 restrictions the library has been busy.  Yes, we have missed a few meetings of our knitting and crochet group but we have missed our not meeting too. Meeting in the library is so good. We have those references to hand!

I know the state government believes that, because we can borrow across the entire system, the book stock doesn't need to be replenished at the same rate. It really doesn't work like that. Readers need books. Watching a small child stagger to the check out area with their great load of books clutched in their arms is a joy. More and more of them can check out their own books as soon as they can reach the shelf which holds the computer terminal.  I have heard more than one sigh of satisfaction as they complete the task.

How dare they suggest that funding for libraries be cut when libraries provide so much?