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sawylA quick move sideways to a panel on libraries — because what else for a chronic book nerd? — with an interseting discussion both of libraries in fiction and some useful ideas about how to protect libraries both from the predations of war and from the impact of government cuts.
Sophie E Tallis (moderator)
Robert Harkess
Ellen Crosháin
Myfanwy Rodman
Jonathan L. Howard
Favourite libraries in life and fiction?
(Howard) I love the concept behind planetary library in Dr Who. The idea of wanting something from the hundreds section and being told to take a plane because it’s on an other continent. My favourite in life is Manchester Central Library. I remember Remember asking whether it was behind the big round building and being told that it was the big round building!
(Rodman) I like the the British Library with every book that has every been published just sitting there and waiting to be read (From the floor: Carloz Ruiz Zafon’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books is like that)
(Crosháin) My favourite fictional library is Beauty and the Beast. My favourite real library is my house! But favourite is the old reading room at British Museum.
Harkess: Bristol library as it was when I was 11. There are two types of library these days: modern information sources; places of comfort with lights and blotters and reference cards. My favourite fictional library is in Name of the Rose — it’s Escher like and I’d like to be the librarian as long as I didn’t have to kill people!
(Tallis) Buffy, although I’m not too sure about the range of books! I wanted my local library to be on a hellmouth. Otherwise it has to be Bristol Central and the Bodlian.
Fantasy and life featuring libraries and librarians, if you could have your own dream library, what would be your top 5 things and books?
(Crosháin): Bob the skull from the Dresden files; Anne rice first edition of Interview with the Vampire; The Odyssey because it was first real epic; Lord of the Rings, of course; and invisibility cloak so no one bothers me.
(Howard) I write lots of Lovecraftian stuff because it's very bookish, maybe in different editions — scratch and sniff Necronomicon, maybe? — but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to open any of them!
(Rodman) The notes and drafts from authors with the stuff the took out with lots of snug nooks with fires and places to curl up with a good book.
(Harkess) a cup that always had whatever you wanted in it and never made you go to the loo!
(Tallis) Tolkien of course. I also loves the idea of discarded notes [someone mentions The Silmarilion] — and I’d have to have a time machine too...
Who would be your dream librarian?
(Harkess) Tyrian Lanister. Catching up with Game of Thrones, I remembers a moment when Tyrion comes out with something clever, someone asked him how he knew and he said, "I read it in a book" at which point my wife laughed because it's my standard excuse when I’m making something up.
(Tallis) Giles!
Looking back In history libraries have often been destroyed as part of cultural cleansing. Is there anything that individuals can do to preserve libraries?
(Howard) Practically, no. Backups are needed because when war hits, people are the priority and the books get left behind.
(Rodman) I like the idea of Fahrenheit 451 with people remembering books precisely; with things living on without the physical thing
(Howard) But what if people wilfully misremember; I dislike Thomas Hardy so imagine what would happen if I was given it to remember? "The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the Durbervilles? Yes, they both end happily ever after!" I love the idea of the oral tradition but there's no way we could back ourselves up because there is just so much information.
But the reason that people get rid of libraries is because knowledge is power, so you destabilise them and try to delete them by destroying their knowledge. The tragedy is that we don’t even know what we’ve lot because it hasn’t been catalogued or copied. Bear in mind that this is what can happen: things are fragile and they can be gone quickly.
(Tallis) History is what is left behind. You’re re-writing people’s histories and changing what will be remembered. You overwrite the everyday and it means that the terrorists are winning. Cultural cleansing exists to destroy the existing situation and replace it with your own.
Current climate of austerity means that budgets are tight and libraries are the soft option. As readers and writers and book lovers what can we do?
(Rodman) Volunteer and use them and encourage others and bring your children. Contribute to consultation to make people realise how much people love them and use them, even if it's small don't mean it's not used (Tallis: it’s good to hear that works; I’ve heard cases where it really doesn't)
(Harkess) There are collaborations between authors and libraries with workshops or themed reading events with local writing circles, but needs to be promoted to pull in people. But it takes effort and people are run ragged and it's a balance of the extra stuff beyond what they're being paid to do.
(Crosháin): Stuff happens for kids at libraries. They’re called Hybs in Cardiff because Welsh! They’re more more social, no longer just about books; they’re where knowledge is sheared and gained and stops being just the province of the bookish and becomes a part of the community.
(Tallis) Working in a library you realise it's a vital lifeline for people. Diversity is incredible.
(Howard) I have a library degree — the actual title is Library and Information Sciences. It’s as though the trees are in the way of seeing the wood; it’s become about information more than it’s just about books and its a shame because it's no longer just about the books — it’s sad the way some libraries have replaced their reading rooms — but we have to accept that things move on...
(Harkess) There’s a cultural shock of returning to somewhere you've loved and you still have this image and it's off and wrong. But it's your job to adapt to that.
(Tallis) One of the things people don't realise is that it's down to stats and numbers of people who come in — there's a people counter which is used to decide how resources are used and plays a roll when deciding whether to cut things. It’s very much use it or lose it. The central libraries at the top are the image of a traditional library, but there's no reason why they can't have both a traditional reading room above and a snug and low-ceilinged community space below. It’s what they libraries need to move towards: accessibility for all.
As book lovers, what would be your future library?
(Rodman) A library with a cafe and evening evens and a communal thing but also with a quiet room full of books
(Howard) Ideal of it being a hub and an information interchange
(Crosháin) We talk about internet and behave like everything is electronic and people can just use their Kindles. But not everyone has that — especially deprived kids — so we need a cocoon that can provide the sort of access to information that those of us with privilege and access take for granted.
(Tallis) Yes. The cost of printing ink is so expensive that people come in to print out stuff where it’s much cheaper...
(Harkess) I agree with the access thing, especially because I've just been on holiday in a place with no internet — either wifi or phone — and it was hard to decide what do without the weather forecast! Fractal image with replicating pattern. Access used to be limited and this has gradually expanded and at the moment the community side is more important than the information but I can see a more traditional library function budding off that, and it'll be interning to see where things go.
Questions
You haven't mentioned how librarians help give access to people who don't know what exists. As an academic, I’ve had conversations with my subject-specific librarian and they’ve talked about how they can help students find resources they never knew existed.
(Tallis) That’s very true but there’s a lack of specialist librarians, largely because of cost. So most of the people on duty are volunteers — which is wonderful — but they don’t have the depth of knowlege.
(Crosháin) Yes, when I was at university, the library was staffed by students but they could only point in the right direction. I you break your leg, you go to a doctor because they know what to do rather than your well meaning friend who’s an aromatherapist.
(Howard) A lot of people don’t know the difference between an Assistant Librarian and a Library Assistant — the former is a fully qualified librarian, while the latter isn’t.
Sophie E Tallis (moderator)
Robert Harkess
Ellen Crosháin
Myfanwy Rodman
Jonathan L. Howard
Favourite libraries in life and fiction?
(Howard) I love the concept behind planetary library in Dr Who. The idea of wanting something from the hundreds section and being told to take a plane because it’s on an other continent. My favourite in life is Manchester Central Library. I remember Remember asking whether it was behind the big round building and being told that it was the big round building!
(Rodman) I like the the British Library with every book that has every been published just sitting there and waiting to be read (From the floor: Carloz Ruiz Zafon’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books is like that)
(Crosháin) My favourite fictional library is Beauty and the Beast. My favourite real library is my house! But favourite is the old reading room at British Museum.
Harkess: Bristol library as it was when I was 11. There are two types of library these days: modern information sources; places of comfort with lights and blotters and reference cards. My favourite fictional library is in Name of the Rose — it’s Escher like and I’d like to be the librarian as long as I didn’t have to kill people!
(Tallis) Buffy, although I’m not too sure about the range of books! I wanted my local library to be on a hellmouth. Otherwise it has to be Bristol Central and the Bodlian.
Fantasy and life featuring libraries and librarians, if you could have your own dream library, what would be your top 5 things and books?
(Crosháin): Bob the skull from the Dresden files; Anne rice first edition of Interview with the Vampire; The Odyssey because it was first real epic; Lord of the Rings, of course; and invisibility cloak so no one bothers me.
(Howard) I write lots of Lovecraftian stuff because it's very bookish, maybe in different editions — scratch and sniff Necronomicon, maybe? — but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to open any of them!
(Rodman) The notes and drafts from authors with the stuff the took out with lots of snug nooks with fires and places to curl up with a good book.
(Harkess) a cup that always had whatever you wanted in it and never made you go to the loo!
(Tallis) Tolkien of course. I also loves the idea of discarded notes [someone mentions The Silmarilion] — and I’d have to have a time machine too...
Who would be your dream librarian?
(Harkess) Tyrian Lanister. Catching up with Game of Thrones, I remembers a moment when Tyrion comes out with something clever, someone asked him how he knew and he said, "I read it in a book" at which point my wife laughed because it's my standard excuse when I’m making something up.
(Tallis) Giles!
Looking back In history libraries have often been destroyed as part of cultural cleansing. Is there anything that individuals can do to preserve libraries?
(Howard) Practically, no. Backups are needed because when war hits, people are the priority and the books get left behind.
(Rodman) I like the idea of Fahrenheit 451 with people remembering books precisely; with things living on without the physical thing
(Howard) But what if people wilfully misremember; I dislike Thomas Hardy so imagine what would happen if I was given it to remember? "The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the Durbervilles? Yes, they both end happily ever after!" I love the idea of the oral tradition but there's no way we could back ourselves up because there is just so much information.
But the reason that people get rid of libraries is because knowledge is power, so you destabilise them and try to delete them by destroying their knowledge. The tragedy is that we don’t even know what we’ve lot because it hasn’t been catalogued or copied. Bear in mind that this is what can happen: things are fragile and they can be gone quickly.
(Tallis) History is what is left behind. You’re re-writing people’s histories and changing what will be remembered. You overwrite the everyday and it means that the terrorists are winning. Cultural cleansing exists to destroy the existing situation and replace it with your own.
Current climate of austerity means that budgets are tight and libraries are the soft option. As readers and writers and book lovers what can we do?
(Rodman) Volunteer and use them and encourage others and bring your children. Contribute to consultation to make people realise how much people love them and use them, even if it's small don't mean it's not used (Tallis: it’s good to hear that works; I’ve heard cases where it really doesn't)
(Harkess) There are collaborations between authors and libraries with workshops or themed reading events with local writing circles, but needs to be promoted to pull in people. But it takes effort and people are run ragged and it's a balance of the extra stuff beyond what they're being paid to do.
(Crosháin): Stuff happens for kids at libraries. They’re called Hybs in Cardiff because Welsh! They’re more more social, no longer just about books; they’re where knowledge is sheared and gained and stops being just the province of the bookish and becomes a part of the community.
(Tallis) Working in a library you realise it's a vital lifeline for people. Diversity is incredible.
(Howard) I have a library degree — the actual title is Library and Information Sciences. It’s as though the trees are in the way of seeing the wood; it’s become about information more than it’s just about books and its a shame because it's no longer just about the books — it’s sad the way some libraries have replaced their reading rooms — but we have to accept that things move on...
(Harkess) There’s a cultural shock of returning to somewhere you've loved and you still have this image and it's off and wrong. But it's your job to adapt to that.
(Tallis) One of the things people don't realise is that it's down to stats and numbers of people who come in — there's a people counter which is used to decide how resources are used and plays a roll when deciding whether to cut things. It’s very much use it or lose it. The central libraries at the top are the image of a traditional library, but there's no reason why they can't have both a traditional reading room above and a snug and low-ceilinged community space below. It’s what they libraries need to move towards: accessibility for all.
As book lovers, what would be your future library?
(Rodman) A library with a cafe and evening evens and a communal thing but also with a quiet room full of books
(Howard) Ideal of it being a hub and an information interchange
(Crosháin) We talk about internet and behave like everything is electronic and people can just use their Kindles. But not everyone has that — especially deprived kids — so we need a cocoon that can provide the sort of access to information that those of us with privilege and access take for granted.
(Tallis) Yes. The cost of printing ink is so expensive that people come in to print out stuff where it’s much cheaper...
(Harkess) I agree with the access thing, especially because I've just been on holiday in a place with no internet — either wifi or phone — and it was hard to decide what do without the weather forecast! Fractal image with replicating pattern. Access used to be limited and this has gradually expanded and at the moment the community side is more important than the information but I can see a more traditional library function budding off that, and it'll be interning to see where things go.
Questions
You haven't mentioned how librarians help give access to people who don't know what exists. As an academic, I’ve had conversations with my subject-specific librarian and they’ve talked about how they can help students find resources they never knew existed.
(Tallis) That’s very true but there’s a lack of specialist librarians, largely because of cost. So most of the people on duty are volunteers — which is wonderful — but they don’t have the depth of knowlege.
(Crosháin) Yes, when I was at university, the library was staffed by students but they could only point in the right direction. I you break your leg, you go to a doctor because they know what to do rather than your well meaning friend who’s an aromatherapist.
(Howard) A lot of people don’t know the difference between an Assistant Librarian and a Library Assistant — the former is a fully qualified librarian, while the latter isn’t.
