The cruel futility of hope?

I'm feeling a bit Monday morningish today. Perhaps it's because the Pittsburgh Steelers were beaten in the Superbowl last night (well you've got to support the Steelers if you live in Sheffield) but mainly it's a dip following the euphoria of Save our Libraries Day and the Shush-In for Sheffield Libraries. The event on Saturday was really amazing and although we obviously staged managed some aspects of the event, the response to my "let the wild rumpus begin" call was spontaneous and enthusiastic. You can see the full video of the event made by the Green Party here or highlights of the Shush-In here . Coverage in the local paper is here.

But it is the morning after the night before so we have to take a sober look at what happened. Of course the Steelers should have run more on first-down but to return to libraries I think that most of us know that the demonstrations, read-ins, shush-ins and passionate arguments from readers and authors will not in themselves make the decision-makers change their minds about library cuts. However, what we have done in Sheffield and elsewhere is to put libraries into the media and raised their profile. We must never forget that many people, especially those with overall responsibility for the financing of libraries, generally pay little or no attention to them. What the national day of action has done is to create a window of opportunity while libraries are in the headlines to get our message across.

What is that message? The core message is that expressed by so many library users, writers, librarians and a scattering of celebrities on the value and importance of libraries to both individual, communities and civilisation as a whole. However we also have to be quite cynical in framing arguments that will appeal to the decision makers in local government. I suggest that the following arguments would hit home.


1. Libraries do not cost much to run. The budget for Sheffield Libraries is less than 1% of the total city budgets so cutting libraries does not help other service avoid cuts,

2. Libraries are one of the most popular (if not the most popular) services provided by local authorities. Many elected members already feel that they have been made the scapegoat for the Government's cuts policy so why court even further pain for so little gain?

3. It might be the case that cuts are inevitable and that everyone must share in the pain but this should be based on outcomes and not inputs. In other words it is not a case of looking at a spreadsheet and saying that the column headed "Libraries" must take the same percentage cut as the columns headed "elderly", "learning disabled" or "pot-holes". Authorities should consider the outcome on the people affected. The cuts will hurt the elderly, people with special needs and those who are losing their jobs - and it is precisely these people who need library services the most. Libraries are often their last remaining hope, a light when all others have failed. It might be just as a source of entertainment and escapism (and why not! We want bread and roses too!). It might be a source for information (including health information) when other services have closed. It might be for lifelong learning, training or help to set up in business as ways of escaping from unemployment. Above all libraries provide ideas, inspiration and hope. We could be very cynical and say that the last thing people need today is hope because they are bound to be disappointed, but I don't believe that local councillors want to take hope away from their communities.Or do they?

Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has said that calls to exempt libraries from cuts were "a call to heap more cuts on care of the elderly, learning disabled and those with mental health problems. Have they thought through the impact of their messianic message about literature on the most vulnerable in our society?"

The answer Mr Mitchell is Yes! We have thought about the impact of our message on the most vulnerable in our society and that is precisely why we believe that libraries should be exempt from cuts. Have you thought about the impact of denying your community hope of a better future?

Save our Libraries

This is the text of my introduction to the SINTO course "Sources of health and wellbeing information for the public" which is running on Friday.

Welcome to this SINTO training event on sources of health and wellbeing information. As you may know, tomorrow is Save Our Libraries day when people all over the country will be showing their support for public libraries. Now I probably shouldn't have said that. It's possible now that someone from Sheffield City Council will turn up and tell us we can't hold this event because it is too political!


The reason I mention it is that there is a big debate going on about the value and importance of libraries - and one argument you often hear is "Well we don't need libraries any more because it's all on the Internet."

Now this course is going to look at the resources that are available on the internet among other things but even if "it is all on the Internet" (and we know that is not the case), that does not mean that libraries and librarians are obsolete.

I decided to do a search on Google yesterday for Alzheimer (it had been a bad day). I typed it in and Google came up with 20 million hits! Now isn't that marvellous! What more could I possibly want? Being experienced in this sort of thing I knew that in that list would be something like 100 hits that would be exactly what I wanted. Up-to-date, accurate, authoritative and designed to meet my exact requirements. Unfortunately that leaves 1 million, nine hundred and ninety thousand, and nine hundred hits that are not relevant - and the problem of sorting out which are which.

That is why we need libraries and that is why you are here today.

I click therefore I am

In my last post I copied a press release issued by the Sheffield based group Library Workers for a Brighter Future. They had invited the poet Ian McMillan to an event at Hillsborough library as part of Save our Libraries day. It appears that Sheffield City Council banned this event because it was "political"- but since when have Local Authorities had the right to stop their citizens being "political"? In any case, this event was about democratic engagement and public libraries have to be central to that.

Sheffield City Council, like many other councils, is suggesting cuts to the library service budget along with cuts to other council services, because the Government has reduced its grant. The democratically elected members on the Council will have to consider these proposed cuts and make a decision. That is how it should be. But does this mean that the Council has the right to supress any dissent, let alone discussion of this decision? There is a debate about public libraries taking place on the Sheffield Forum web site. Many people are very supportive of libraries but others say they must take their share of the cuts. That is what political debate is all about. The Council however wants to put a stop to debate.

The Leader of the Council, Paul Scriven, is well known locally for featuring in a music video promotion for  Mercure Hotel. It might have been nice instead if he could have produced a music video promoting Sheffield Libraries with his refain of "You just keep me coming back". (When you have seen the video you might think it's a good idea that he didn't!). But why does he think it is right to promote a hotel and then stop the libraries promoting themselves?
The council probably thinks that it can get away with this sort of censorship because librarians and library users are quiet, timid people who won't make a fuss. We hope to show that they are wrong with our Shh4sheflib event on Saturday. I don't suppose they will be too keen on that either but so far they haven't said they are going to ban it. I hope that the people of Sheffield will turn out in force to demonstrate that we will not be told what we can do by the Council. We are promoting this event through social media sites and it might demonstrate to the Council - as with many oppresive governments worldwide - that you can't stop people with bans and censorship.

I will finish with a poem by the banned Ian McMillan
CONNECTED




Before, when you got mail,

It was a chap in a cap with a sack packed full;

Before, when you researched

You sat and sweated in a library that was just this side of dull;



And when you booked your holidays

You stood there in a queue

Behind a family of five and a pensioner or two

And life seemed so much slower, somehow;

There was acres of last week and just half a glimpse of now;



Today you click

On a mouse

And you can shop till you drop without leaving the house

And now you send

Your blogs

Right across the globe and the photos of your dogs

Can appear on your site in the twinkling of an eye

And in a tick you get a picture back of Grandma saying Hi!

Framed against the backdrop of a California sky…





And it’s been fifteen years from before to this

And now we’re living in a universe of constant cyber bliss!

And like the first fire in the cave

Or the first turning of The Wheel

The internet is changing how we think and speak and feel

And in the next fifteen years the net will turn and twist again

And go down murky sidestreets far beyond this Barnsley brain

And one thing’s certain: the net is here forever,

Constant as taxes, unpredictable as weather…



And before I’m dragged right under in a growing tide of spam

I’ve time for just this one last post: I click therefore I am!



© Ian McMillan, for BBC R4 Today, 7.8.06

Sheffield Council bans Ian McMillan

Sheffield City Council have informed Library Workers For A Brighter Future that a planned event at Upperthorpe Library, a children's creative writing workshop to be run by poet, broadcaster & comedian, Ian McMillan, will not be allowed to go ahead due to concerns over possible 'political comments'. The event, conceived as a fun and creative way of highlighting the value of public libraries, appears to have caused great concern for the council, with the decision over whether it should be allowed to go ahead passed all the way up to members of the senior management. We view this as a misguided and heavy-handed attempt to silence those of us who want to stand up for our library service and oppose the potentially devastating public sector cuts.
'Libraries are a vital and irreplaceable part of a cultured and civilised society, and one of the few public places left where you don't have to pay to get in...' Ian McMillan
In Sheffield it is being proposed that the present library budget of £8.5m should be cut by £2.5m by 2013/14, i.e. by £1.4m in 2011/12 and £550k in 2012/13 and 2013/14. There are no current plans to close libraries but cuts on this scale will inevitably have a major impact on the quality of the library service. As a campaigning organisation we are keen to work with the council wherever possible to highlight the good work that libraries do in our communities. This lack of cooperation on even such a simple thing as a children's creative writing workshop leaves us with little option but to pursue other ideas.
Saturday 5th of February is the national day of action for libraries and Library Workers For A Brighter Future would like to invite everybody to a mass 'Shhhh!'-in at 11am in the Sheffield Central Lending Library on Surrey Street.

Shhh-In rules...

Finger to lips.

At 11am say 'Shhhhh!'

Finish off with three cheers for the library!

Finally, borrow lots of books – lets empty those shelves. You're allowed up to 15 out on your library card, so bring a big bag!

 We will be using the Twitter hashtag #shh4sheflib.
Library Workers For A Brighter Future

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