Much rabble-rousing was occurring in the Twitsphere yesterday around the hashtag “#savelibraries”, a response to proposed cuts to library services in England and Wales. People were encouraged – initially, as far as I can tell, by the comedian-cum-provocateur Robin Ince – to explain in sub-140-character form why they thought these temples of auto-didacticism were a good idea. And there were many heartwarming tales of people finding refuge in these temples of bookishness, and of using them as springboards to better things, better worlds, better lives.
Every now and then, someone popped up to suggest that the best way to support libraries is to use them; politicians would not dare to cut back a service that millions of voters used on a regular basis. I felt a little guilty at this. OK, I haven’t been in the UK much in recent years, but when I have, I haven’t exactly been battering down the doors of my local reference section. I’m not sure whether I’ve even had a library card since I was a child. Do they still have library cards, or do users get a chip implanted in their necks? I don’t know.
But then why should I feel guilty? I don’t make use of housing benefit or income support or domestic violence refuges or soup kitchens, but I still think they should be available as part of an overall need to iron out the social creases. Which suggests that my perception of libraries – a place for people who can’t afford to buy that many books – is diametrically opposed to that of the head of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, who claimed that they were too white and middle-class. So should the sort of earnest Guardian readers who campaign to save libraries visit them to demonstrate support, or avoid them because they can afford to buy books at Waterstones, and they’re crowding out the single mums? God damn you England, why does even reading have to be a class issue?
One observation, or maybe two. When I was editing the Guinness Book of Records, I’d be on the receiving end of accusations that I was dumbing the product down, that there were too many pictures of luscious babes in the world’s most expensive bikinis and elderly Indian gentlemen hammering nails into various bits of their anatomies; and not enough info about the world’s rarest tulip. My argument, then and now, was that we were persuading the most book-averse demographic – boys of about 12 – to ask for a book for Christmas, and around that time it was only us and JK Rowling who could do that. And I still maintain that that’s not a bad thing to be doing.
On the other hand, when I enter a bookshop or library, and wander to the fiction section, and seek out the C’s, and I see half a dozen Jonathan Coes and even fewer JM Coetzees, separated by a vast breezeblock of Paulo Coelho, I do wonder whether simply saying to people “Here are lots of books; why not read some of them?” is quite enough.
Every now and then, someone popped up to suggest that the best way to support libraries is to use them; politicians would not dare to cut back a service that millions of voters used on a regular basis. I felt a little guilty at this. OK, I haven’t been in the UK much in recent years, but when I have, I haven’t exactly been battering down the doors of my local reference section. I’m not sure whether I’ve even had a library card since I was a child. Do they still have library cards, or do users get a chip implanted in their necks? I don’t know.
But then why should I feel guilty? I don’t make use of housing benefit or income support or domestic violence refuges or soup kitchens, but I still think they should be available as part of an overall need to iron out the social creases. Which suggests that my perception of libraries – a place for people who can’t afford to buy that many books – is diametrically opposed to that of the head of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, who claimed that they were too white and middle-class. So should the sort of earnest Guardian readers who campaign to save libraries visit them to demonstrate support, or avoid them because they can afford to buy books at Waterstones, and they’re crowding out the single mums? God damn you England, why does even reading have to be a class issue?
One observation, or maybe two. When I was editing the Guinness Book of Records, I’d be on the receiving end of accusations that I was dumbing the product down, that there were too many pictures of luscious babes in the world’s most expensive bikinis and elderly Indian gentlemen hammering nails into various bits of their anatomies; and not enough info about the world’s rarest tulip. My argument, then and now, was that we were persuading the most book-averse demographic – boys of about 12 – to ask for a book for Christmas, and around that time it was only us and JK Rowling who could do that. And I still maintain that that’s not a bad thing to be doing.
On the other hand, when I enter a bookshop or library, and wander to the fiction section, and seek out the C’s, and I see half a dozen Jonathan Coes and even fewer JM Coetzees, separated by a vast breezeblock of Paulo Coelho, I do wonder whether simply saying to people “Here are lots of books; why not read some of them?” is quite enough.
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