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House of Commons Meeting 15th March 2001
LIBRARIES for LIFE for LONDONERS
FIRST PUBLIC MEETING
HOUSE of COMMONS, 15th March 2001

 

Library supporters who represented over 18 boroughs and institutions connected with libraries in London attended the first public meetingof LLL.An estimated 130 people were there.

 

The meeting was sponsored by JOHN WILKINSON, MP for Northfields and South Ruislip, chaired by KATHLEEN FRENCHMAN (co-chairman LLL) and introduced by SUSAN CHINN (co-chairman LLL)who spoke briefly on the origins of the organisation. TREVOR PHILLIPS, Chair Greater London Assembly, TONY TRAVERS, Director Greater London������ LSE,and TOM SELWYN, (co-chairman LLL) were the speakers.

 

TREVOR PHILLIPS spoke of his background, which had given him an understanding of the importance of libraries to the lives and life chances of less privileged young people. His own introduction to libraries, by a teacher who took an interest in him, led to his immersion in worlds outside his family life . The libraries in Guyana where he spent his teenage years continued this trend.

 

He described the Mayor and Assembly as �conjoined twins locked in a hellish embrace� and advised campaigners to consider the four branches of Police, Transport, Regeneration and ���.as an opportunity to persuade different parts of the Assembly to support libraries.

 

Trevor described London in the 2000�s as a city where knowledge and information were the new industry, and where the patterns of employment were radically changing. Libraries could aid in creating the necessarysmart and educated citizenry.Libraries provide a most significant communal meeting place for all kinds of people, vital in a city where people have so many varieties of backgrounds , cultures and interests. Neighbourhood libraries were very important.

 

Supporters shouldencourage their local councillors to think more widely about libraries, especially given social diversity and division. �You have to win hearts and minds� to convince local authorities that serving the community is about more than financial balances.Money must go in the right places, and the GLA wants to ensure that children such as he had been would have the opportunities they needed.

 

TONY TRAVERSnoted that he had been independentchair of the Councillors� Review of Camden�s library services when that borough was going through a bad patch. That occasion proved the value of civic engagement.He said that councillors face difficult choices in London , with all its diverse needs, and that libraries are in competition for resources . Complications are added by government directives.

 

Libraries have changed from Victorian days and now respond to an increasing variety of needs. They are threatened by ignorance of what they can and do, and by a complacency of expectation that they will always be there.

 

He urged campaigners to use all opportunities to lobby the GLA, and pointed out that the existence of LLL is �a demonstration of the way in which Londoners can work together for the common good�.

 

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Points from discussion:

 

What could be done, lobbying apart, to keep libraries open.How should it become an all-party issue?Could the business world help locally with support for local libraries? How could partnership agreements with other community groups/buildings be arranged? How could the Internet be used to bring young people into libraries?Was there a way to bring the City of London �with its money�into library support?

 

Trevor Phillips suggested that we could tie our thinking about the future of libraries into some of the current concerns about area regeneration and the creation of healthy neighbourhoods.He asked if we needed to rethink �what a library is� and where itshould be located. He was fairly dismissive of Community Centres as neighbourhood focus points and mentioned doctor�s surgeries as in more regular use by all groups.

 

Can the comparative claims of books and technology be adjusted so that libraries were not �dumbed down� to provide for information technology?

 

Tony Travers said that this was the key problem, to understand the contributions of technology and to reconcile it. No answer at present.

 

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Councillors from Merton said that the library was important as the focus of the community and that they had resigned because of proposed cuts and closuresin that borough.

 

Tony Travers mentioned the Tower Hamlets experiment of locating libraries in supermarkets(�Ideas Stores�) and there were loud and disapproving murmurs from the crowd.

 

Whitechapel Library Friends are fighting to keep their library from being sold�a decision taken without consulting users. How should this be stopped?

 

Tony Travers said the local authorities had been cash-strapped for years and had constraints from directives of central government. If there was an inconsistency this should be explained to central government (i.e. the DCMS) as they made the rules.

 

DAVID MURRAY, Director of the London Library Development Agency, spoke on all that libraries were doingand commented that �some people don�t want to read books but everyone needs access to information�. He felt that there should be dialogue between LLL and all library users in London.

 

PETER BEAUCHAMP, DCMS,pointed out that central government departments other that the DCMS have responsibilities which influence the operation of libraries. It is the DeTR which shapes the flow of money for buildings, not the DCMS. The Treasury itself takes decisions which affect the way in which libraries can operate.

 

Mayfair Residents Association is campaigningto keep local library in Westminster open, and has awide support base.

 

TOM SELWYN of CPLUG said that the discussion had thrown up new perspectives on �partnership�, pointing out that often decisions on libraries were made after property deals had been made.The debate on the impact of information technology on libraries should be continued, and it was important to work WITH councils as much as possible.

 

�Museums, archives and libraries belong at the heart of people�s lives� but they are in a bit of a mess.At all levels there must be powerful resistance to the relentless decline in funding.But deals with property developers must be approached with caution�is a public/private linkage really a partnership? �

 

The battle for good lively local government goes together with the battle for good cultural life. The Key People are the userswho can resist �dumbing down� in cooperation with library staff.

 

Trevor Phillips said all forms of media should exist in libraries and that arguments aboutorganisational style of local authorities should not be confused with the requirements for libraries. He supports the new approach as far more open than the old and better able to cope with the billion-pound organisations that councils are now. Think of using the vast resources of new initiatives for regeneration/social inclusion andmaybe provide council services in libraries. Do not be blinded by adherence to the past, to preserving things as they have always been�look at the whole picture, seize opportunities.

 

The meeting closed with thanks to all participants , MP John Wilkinson. who arranged for the room, and all who attended.

 

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