������� FRIENDS OF WEST GREENWICH LIBRARY
������� ���� N E W S L E T T E R
No. 5 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� October 2006
PUBLIC LIBRARIES AMERICAN STYLE
David�s aunty who lives at Stanford, near San Francisco, was celebrating her hundredth birthday in February.� I don�t like flying so I agreed to cross the Atlantic and back by air but no further.� So we went from New York to San Francisco by train and returned via Washington. It was a fairly leisurely journey and, by the end of three weeks, I had reconnoitred five libraries: the New York Public Library, acad- emic libraries at Stanford, a Californian public library and the Library of Congress.
I read Lorraine Williams�s account of her visit to St Petersburg last year and remembered her amazement at the space awarded to its libraries and the massive and monolithic style of Communist architecture.� I, too, was amazed by some of the American architecture, but it could not be called Stalinist. Proudly capitalist and optimistic perhaps (I was equally amazed by Grand Central Station) but what really impressed me was the scope of all the libraries I saw.
| New York Public Library was holding a marvellous exhibition of late mediaeval manuscript books and very� early printed books entirely from its� own collections.� Stanford�s libraries� were all that one would expect, with� vast runs of journals and special� collections � I was especially interested� n some early books of maps.There was even a library for ex students and several elderly alumni were reading (dozing?)� in very comfortable armchairs. The Library of Congress is another enormous and prestigious institution but the Los Altos Public Library surprised me most. |
Serving a population of 27,000, it
was bigger than any Greenwich Library I�ve� visited and better stocked, carrying, for instance, many more books on British History and London than our own local library. The proportion of new hardbacks was extremely high, including the latest Harry Potter and Philip Pullman�s trilogy in the junior section.�� There was also a large, well-equipped computer area.� It� seems that the local population had voted in a tax of $600,000 for the library.� I wonder if Greenwich Council taxpayers would be as public spirited? But Los Altos lies on the edge of Silicon Valley.�� |
EDITOR
FWGL �- OUR YEAR����������������� �� ���������������������
The FWGL Committee has met four times this year.�� We discussed worries about the future of our building, space for books as well as computers and the
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burgeoning Book Discussion Group among other more general concerns about libraries in London.
Members of the Committee, together with the Friends of the East Greenwich Library asked for a meeting with Julia Newton, the Borough�s new Head of Greenwich Community Services.�
At that meeting on April 29th, Julia Newton was accompanied by Steve Woods, Group Manager, Operations, who has attended past Friends� AGMs.
Firstly, Julia Newton sketched out features of the Borough�s current library scene.� Importantly, Greenwich measures up generally to the newly strengthened Service Standard One of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which is the requirement for outer London Boroughs, to ensure that households are within one mile of a static library. West Greenwich Library is well-placed, being near shops and transport links and is well used.� The building itself requires considerable renovation work.
The new library in East Greenwich which will be built on the former Greenwich District Hospital site in Vanbrugh Hill will cover a space of 1000 square metres and will be one of the three service �hubs� containing a cluster of service points. The other �hubs�, in Eltham and Woolwich, are at a more advanced stage.� The Eltham service hub incorporates the old High Street Library which has been extended and improved and the work is expected to finish next year.�� The third hub in Woolwich will feature a new library opposite the Town Hall and will, as at present, be the largest library in the Borough.
We reviewed a number of our long-standing concerns: implications of irregular opening hours, pressure on shelf-space and constraints on the purchase of stock.� A new topic dealt with was the current delays and costs of the interlibrary loan service.� At present the East and West Greenwich libraries are pressed for space and the West Greenwich Friends highlighted the loss of half their library space to the Education Project Loans Service.� In principle, the Borough wishes to rehouse the service but so far no alternative has been mentioned.�
The Friends found the meeting helpful and encouraging. Julia Newton was interested in working with Friends� groups and building a user group network.�
A similar resume of this meeting was published in the July edition of the Greenwich Society Newsletter
DON�T FORGET THE 2006 FRIENDS� AGM.
��� THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26TH�
��� SEE PAGE 6 FOR DETAILS��������
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BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
This year our reading has included novels by VS Naipaul, Evelyn Waugh and Rachel Seiffert, two plays by Chekhov, short stories by Alice Munro and a book on his Siberian travels by Colin Thubron.� �Snow� by the Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, generated much discussion about the influence of religion in a Muslim community and a volume of Alan Clark�s diaries provided light, if sometimes outrageous, relief.�
The Greenwich Librarian for Reading Groups, Maggie Horbacka, hopes that next year�s reading list, already submitted by us, will contain more than usual of the books for which we asked, for, of course, we compete with the wants of the other book groups.� Some classics are out of print but our local librarians managed to get us our Chekhov this year and classic titles have been put into a more prominent position as a section of the library. Perhaps the collection will expand as time goes on?�
Membership of the group has continued to increase but since we receive only twelve copies of �each book we have contemplated limiting the group to that number.� However, over the summer, the attendance dropped off slightly and since not all members can attend every meeting, we have decided to do nothing about it for the present.
We plan to continue our outings to Greenwich Theatre this autumn and hope that last year�s Christmas party will become an annual event.� Finally, I must thank Maggie, Gill and Gita, for their continuing support.� They are an essential part of the BDG.
MAUREEN BAYLIS
����� BDG CALENDAR
The BDG meets on the second Monday of every month at ��������5.50 pm in West Greenwich Library
Our next meeting will be on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6th.
The book for November will be: �Things Fall Apart� by Chinua Achebe.
The last meeting of the year will take place on MONDAY, DECEMBER 11th������� ���������
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We asked members of the BDG to write short book reviews, not necessarily of something we had read as a group.� This is the result.� As you can see, we have a lot of talent among us!
Firstly, two reviews of the Alan Clark Diaries, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993.
The memoirs of career politicians are distinguished by two character- istics.� First the writers take themselves very seriously and think they have been doing a very important job.� Second, they strive to show that they have invariably been right in their judgments. Alan Clark was not a career politician.� He was a wealthy toff with a well developed ego who went into politics in order to do something useful.� His political diaries are therefore different in that he doesn�t take himself seriously and has no interest in showing himself in a good light.� What he writes is what he believes and is therefore honest, refreshing and interesting.� It is also highly amusing.
MARGARET VALE
Incorrigibly upper class, indefatigably in pursuit of the bedable, though nonetheless still true in his fashion to his long suffering wife, Jane, Alan Clark provides the perfect introduction to politics for those who have never thought them interesting, still less entertaining.� His ambitious attempts to outmanoeuvre his superiors are Machiavellian and intrigue has never been described with more wit and style.� He is by turns fallible, vain, indiscreet, infuriating and endearing while at all times eminently readable. As a politician he never attained the heights but as a writer he is the Pepys of our time.
BELINDA MARLER
And secondly two reviews of personal favourites which have odd similarities if you dig for them.
YOUNGHUSBAND: THE LAST GREAT IMPERIAL ADVENTURER
by Patrick French.
Sir Francis Younghusband�s explorations of the Gobi Desert, and leadership of the British invasion of
He shocked his contemporaries by his passionate advocacy of Indian
independence, and by his enthusiasm for free love, beginning a love affair aged 77.
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Patrick French narrates the story at a cracking pace, interspersing
the story with his own adventures in
����������� By the end, one can�t help but share his affection.� He does not theorise about his subject, an his interweaving of past and present presents a� new approach to biography which makes for compulsive reading.�����
MAUREEN BAYLIS
WATERLOG; A SWIMMER�S JOURNEY THROUGH
by ROGER DEAKEN
WATERLOG by Roger Deaken who died on August 19th of this year, was inspired by John Cleever�s story, The Swimmer, and was published in 1999.� It is a diary of eight months spent swimming in a great variety of stretches of water ranging from his own moat in Suffolk to the Scottish lochs, the sea, the Somerset levels, rivers, millponds, lidos.� It sounds an unlikely source of what is a treasure chest of anecdote, travel writing, nature notes, encounters, which chronicle his delight in freedom and �wild swimming� and his love of the quirky eccentricities which he finds wherever he goes and which are often threatened by the dead hand of officialdom.
MARY PARR
BDG GOES TO PRISON
Five members of the Book Discussion Group spent a September afternoon in Holloway Prison � voluntarily!� We were there at the invitation of Music in Prisons, a charity which introduces musicians into prisons to work with prisoners and help them develop their musical talents.�
In a special performance by a group of twelve to fifteen prisoners, accompanied by music students from Guildhall and Trinity Colleges, we saw the self-confidence, discipline and concentration this generated as they introduced and performed the songs they themselves had written.
There were some strikingly talented singers, voices perfectly suited to the loud beat of the music and we were amazed to learn they had only spent five days working with the musicians.
It was good to support something which might make a real change to these womens� lives but it was also a way for us to remember John Tilley, a member of BDG, who very sadly died last year and whose family chose to support this charity in memory of him.
MAUREEN BAYLIS
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��� FRIENDS OF WEST GREENWICH LIBRARY
�ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
�������������������� THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26TH
���� ��IN WEST GREENWICH LIBRARY
PROGRAMME
7.15 pm � AGM BEGINS
Julia Newton, Head of Greenwich Community Services, has kindly
agreed to attend the meeting together with Steve Woods, Group
Manager, Operations.� They will give us a resume of the present state
of the library service and will answer questions.
8.05 pm � Frances Ward, Education Officer at the Greenwich Heritage Centre, will give a talk, with slides, about Greenwich in old paintings.
A glass of wine will be served at the beginning of the AGM.
All Friends are welcome, and friends of Friends and new friends.
article in the July/August edition of the CILIP* members� magazine, UPDATE, draws attention to the duties of public libraries in the light of recent anti terrorism legislation. The Terrorism Bill, as intended, would have forbidden public libraries to issue �any material which might be of assistance in the commissioning or preparation of terrorist acts if the reader had criminal intent.� **This catchall phrase could have left libraries open to criminal prosecution for going about their normal business of providing material for the general reader.��
Librarians are always under pressurehave always self-censored and not always wisely.� Enid Blyton
was removed from some library shelves, because of her suspect racial and class prejudices and because she was judged to be a bad writer.�� Erotica is another difficult area.� Which books are put into that closed section and which on the open shelves?� Judy Blume has been excluded because sexual references are deemed too explicit for young people but in some libraries she is on the open shelves.� Even after Lady Chatterley was pardoned, librarians in some areas deemed it a step too far to put her on the shelves.� Human nature being what it is, local policies will differ.���
����������� There are, however, threats which might lead to another form of self-censureship.� Some local authorities have been known to put pressure on librarians to ban newspapers they dislike.� Everyone would agree that a library should provide for all political tastes.� Reliant on employers for funding and salaries, this could cause problems for librarians.�
Led by the British Library, intense lobbying over the autumn, meant that the Act, as finally passed, was less harmful to the ethos of libraries.� The organisers of the campaign felt that the initial mistake in the wording was made because no-one in the Home Office had any understanding of how libraries were run.� And despite the change in wording, the Act must remain the latest form of self-censorship threat to librarians.�� It is obviously common sense to exclude bomb-making manuals and web-sites, but where does a sensible library policy stop?� Faced by a possible criminal prosecution, chemistry text books might face a threat and it might even be concluded that some of the whackier James Bond episodes could provide a bright idea or two to a determined terrorist.� Where does the sensible answer lie?����
Current Library Matters
��� FRIENDS OF WEST GREENWICH LIBRARY
�NE W S L E T T E R
No. 4���� ������������������������������������������������������������������������������November 2005
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Books are us
Public libraries have always had three strands twining together to form their ethos: information, education and recreation but education and information have always had a worthier ring . In the House of Commons� Committee which discussed the estabishment of public libraries in 1849/50 most of the arguments used were of the need to encourage �ordinary�, ie, working class, people to increase their knowledge and think more logically � thereby, it was hoped, by the more liberal members, to move them away from any ideas of revolution ( the more conservative worried that it might incline them towards it.)���
Edward Edwards, who did much of the research used to promote public libraries did not pursue the recreational aspects of acquisition in his evidence. The novel reading indulged in by their womenfolk and the penny dreadfuls enjoyed by the working classes were still frowned upon by many of the great and good. Things have changed.� Recreational reading now is acknowledged to be as important as the other strands.� But what is recreational reading?
����������� For some it is the latest treatise on dog-breeding, for others, a cookbook or the latest royal biography, in fact every sort of non-fiction.� Others enjoy novels.� Some want those on the latest Booker shortlist, many want thrillers or science fiction or violent stories of the occult as bed-time reading.� Others enjoy romance. Students enjoy lighthearted �chicklit� after struggling with set texts.� Some Mills and Boon readers have been known to take out eight books a week, probably propping them up on the ironing board as a relief from stress while servicing other people�s needs.
����������� Every reader is entitled to escapist literature, but the rights of some minorities should not be ignored because many people enjoy reading other sorts of books.� Anna Karenina has as much right on the shelves as Princess Diana or Miss Marple.
TO
LIBRARIANS DO NOT RETIRE ; they
travel to other libraries.� In recent years the Retired Members� Guild
of the Library Association (now CILIP � Chartered Institute of Library
and Information Professionals) has been to the South of
FOR MOST OF THE 20th CENTURY we have been cut off from our Russian colleagues, although some of us became acquainted at the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) Conference during the Moscow coup of 1991 � but that�s another story.
ALTHOUGH SPACE PRECLUDES
a detailed discussion of all the libraries visited, this is a brief account of the most interesting.The tour began with a visit to the new building of the Russian National Library, the funding and construction problems of which were similar to those of the British Library.� It is equally splendid but very different.� Palatial, and constructed with true Russian grandeur, its impressive entrance hall was a warm welcoming cream colour, utilising as much natural light as possible; very important during the dark, Russian winter.� It was designed to the highest standards, very user-friendly and with modern technology much in evidence.
THE STATE THEATRICAL LIBRARY is situated in the exquisitely proportioned Rossi
Street, at the centre of the theatre complex.� Founded on August 30th, 1756, it was open to specialists only but since the Revolution all with an interest in the theatre may visit.� Stock consists of 601,000 items:� 15,000 original sketches, 62,000 MSS, press cuttings, and a� comprehensive collection of French, German and Russian plays spanning the 16th to the 20th centuries, illustrations, playbills and much more. We were shown many treasures by the very knowledgeable and enthusiastic subject librarian. This, we agreed, was a real library.
THE STATE LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND, founded in 1927, occupies several buildings in the historic part of the city, including books in 3 formats: printed, Braille and audio. There is an impressive range of services from loans to talking books and tapes. The Publishing Department organises international conferences and produces books on cassettes and CD ROMS.� There are also Braille musical scores.
THE LIBRARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (BAN-Biblioteka Akademia Nauk), founded by Peter the Great in 1714, is now housed in a 1914 building. It has a distinctly Stalinist appearance, monolithic, forbidding and oppressive; a wonderful period piece. Distinguished readers included Pavlov, Mendelev and Lenin. It is worth noting that, as did the Theatrical Library and the Saltykov-Schedrin Public Library, it remained open throughout the 900 days of the terrible siege from September 1941 to January 1945
(as, one suspects, did most institutions).
From
THE MAYAKOVSKY CENTRAL�������������������������������������������������������������������������� CITY LIBRARY, founded in 1868,�� has a foreign language department of 15000 books in 25 languages. An American corner holds more than 5000 books.� There is close liaison� with the Goethe Institute; French is not forgotten.� It holds the Literary Society HQ and the Blok Music and Arts Library. There are 1000 users daily -1600 during exams!
OF PARTICULAR INTEREST WAS the Prince George Galitzine Library, founded
in 1994 by his widow, Jean Dawnay and daughter, Katya,
in his memory. After the revolution he settled in
THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ST� Petersburg libraries, were, above all, the spaciousness, lacking in our overcrowded little island.� Buildings were palatial, the craftsmanship of furniture and catalogues, magnifi- cent. Russians think big � very big � and they have the space to do so.
ST PETERSBURG HAS MUCH� more to offer visitors.� No visit is complete without an evening at the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Theatre.� We were fortunate to see Glinka�s �Life of the Tsar� and �Swan Lake�.� We saw the Hermitage, the restored Amber Room, the Catherine Palace, admired the exquisite Pavlovsk and the autumnal splendour of� the Peterhof.� Future library visits are unlikely to surpass this experience.
LORRAINE WILLIAMS������
A GRIM FAIRY TALE
Once upon a time there were many, many public libraries: most of them near enough for children to reach by walking.� In those far off days libraries would open all day and in the evening.
Then scientists invented a special toy, television, and soon everybody wanted one.� After a short time, some people with lots of money, or who wanted power, or both, saw that it would be a good way to tell people about the washing powder they made or why they should vote for them.� They could see that it would become more and more difficult for people to tell the difference between information and verified truth.�
Then came computers and the flood of information they brought. By now libraries were library and information centres, and in some libraries, computers, pushed out books.�
Some people said that we were losing the plot and it was easier and easier to influence people. Books, however, made you think, developed the �mind�s eye� of the imagination; some opened the door to thoughts and ideas of great minds through the centuries.� This was the path to real knowledge which was gained through developing powers of evaluation, assessment and judgement.� Through them information could be put to proper use and to best effect.�
Who Lives Happily Ever After?
PHYLLIS HARWOOD