Well I certainly try to stand up for the profession and libraries as a whole. It's difficult at the the moment because I work in a UK public library and I'm on a fixed term contract, which means I can be got rid of a lot more easily than if I was permanent.
We've had our RFID self-issue units in most of our libraries for over a year. Certainly a number of members of the public commented and said that they hoped it wouldn't mean staff were going... We always said no, but we've gone through a massive transformation (restructure) where lots of jobs were deleted from the structure. Supposedly people have gone through natural wastage, retirement, voluntary redundancy, etc... I'll leave you to read that as you will.
When Save our Libraries Day took place in February we didn't have many extra people in the library, but a few came in to ask what we were organising. Locally, there was quite a lot of apathy, which surprised me, although possibly we had a few more people suddenly join (where they are now I don't know!)
We advertised new opening hours in June this year as part of the transformation, suddenly everyone came out of the woodwork complaining! By this time there was little we could do, the consultation period for the new hours took place in November last year...
I certainly and very fond of fighting off the stereotypical view of libraries. One of the sewing blogs I read thought it would be wonderful to be a librarian, stamping books all day; The TV show Silent Library, which I believe has been in Japan and the States before it came here - ARGH, now that programme really does wind me up!! I'll be the first one out there sticking up for us to say how wrong they are.
I'm certainly in awe of people who stand up for us so much. I'm lucky to have worked with Johanna from Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries and she is amazing. So enthusiastic - I don't know where you find the energy Jo!! Her latest blog post about advocacy, is possibly the best comment about this "Thing" I've seen. The quote I'll take from her post is
As a librarian you have to be involved in advocacy and if you are not then you are in the wrong job.I wish I could take part in Read-ins like Annie from The Hobbit Hole has done, but I'd have to go outside county for fear of my job!
I think I'm probably getting to the point in a round about way! I do stand up for us and will the the first person to notice an article and make sure people read it. I tend to publicise these on my Facebook page (not all my friends know what a library can offer). The latest article which I felt supported libraries was one written by Caitlin Moran in The Times newspaper. Unfortunately this is behind The Times pay wall so I can't provide a link. The most unfortunate thing about this article was the strapline, which many of my colleagues read as anti-libraries. Not good to get people reading.
By the time the economy gets back to normal our libraries will be coffee shops, Lidls and pubs.A response to this article is viewable though on the Voices for the Library website.
I have stood up for the library and service at risk of a complaint once or twice, but it's not an easy thing to do. We run Baby Rhyme Time sessions in most of our libraries. Our Young People's sections are not always separate from the main library, so the sound of parents and babies can be heard throughout the library. I once had a member of the public come in and complain about the noise of the parents singing and the babies laughing. He said
Libraries are silent places and this is disgraceful. Either they go or I go.My reply ran along the lines of
I'm sorry if you feel this way, sir, but this is something which happens every week at this time. You could come into the library at another time during the week.His look was of astonishment, so I continued...
Whether we like it or not, these are the adults of the future in this country and may be running the country. It's good to encourage them into libraries from an early age.It was nice to have a another reader come up to me later on and say she thought my reply was brilliant and if we'd got rid of one adult reader, it was better to have 20 new young readers. I have to say I'm completely in agreement with her!
All in all though, I think possibly "Must try harder" applies to me in this situation!
That was a really tactful reply! It's hard to try and keep everyone happy when you have such a disparate group of users, particularly in public libraries.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this post, thank you! People are often surprised that our library isn't silent and that we have areas for group discussion, but that's what our students want!
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