The children’s author Alan Gibbons is launching a ‘Campaign for the Book’ which has the aim of establishing “a network of authors, professional bodies, trade unions and local pressure groups to resist attacks on reading for pleasure”. In a recent article Alan writes about how reading for pleasure is being eroded as both public and [...]

At one level it is a debate about whether libraries should be ''silent and serious'' or ''noisy and fun''. At a deeper level it is a debate about what public libraries are there for. The latest round in this debate began with a piece in the Times about Camden Libraries which met with a quick riposte, then a leader in the Times and now letters to ...

The latest issue of the Australian Library Journal focuses on Information Literacy in everyday lives. It is a subscription publication. Articles are: Workplace information literacy for administrative staff in higher education. (Mark Hepworth and Marian Smith); Understanding and practice of information literacy in Australian government libraries. ...

One final thread to tie up from the Essex job before I leave at the end of the week and that's the public library display we were trying to set up as a part of the National Year of Reading - see this previous post. Our materials finally arrived and we put them up in the foyer of the library. As you can see on the left, it was a fairly basic ...

On Fri 15 Aug, the Guardian featured an article on the “noisy row” between librarians on either side of the overdue fines debate. The article provides an overview of the issues surrounding fines within a UK wide context and also points to some interesting alternatives. According to the report, a New Zealand library [...]

The link between economic decline and increased public library use has been discussed by US commentators for many years. Some sources date the first reference to this linkage as a statement in the 1880 Annual Report of the Chicago Public Library (Lynch, M. J. (2001)). More recently, the American Library Association (ALA) has [...]

More on Washington State public libraries.  Before attending the conference I spent a week based in Kent County just south of Seattle itself (staying in an Extended Stay America Hotel - which was fine as a base for touring the area). On a particularly rainy day (apparently unseasonally so for June?) I hit the mall, ...

Following my previous post I have had a pleasant email exchange with Christine Haskell of Seattle Public Libraries Friends Board.  She pointed me to the ‘Friends of Seattle Public Library blog’ (sub title ‘the goings on of the Seattle Public Library’) which is really informative and not only because of the links to other interesting sites ...

I ended a previous post .... ''Before I left Seattle I visited the public library.  It's a really interesting building architecturally as well as in other ways.  I'll upload some photos soonish - but I'm going to be on leave for a few days.  Talk soon.'' ... and then work and life got in the way so I forgot that I said share some ...

After the screening of The Hollywood Librarian I was approached by someone about the situation in Doncaster Libraries. I have been receiving quite a lot of feedback about recent developments with the reorganisation of Doncaster Libraries and deep concern that the council is proposing cuts to the library service. Corporate Director of Customer ...