# Horrible History's writer Terry Deary doesn't like libraries



## Chilari (Feb 19, 2013)

I came across this article in the Guardian the other day and wasn't too happy about it. Lots of people have commented. There's this in the Guardian and this in the Telegraph.

I suspect at least some of this is the Guardian's recent penchant for publishing controversial or unpopular opinions and subsequently publishing counter arguments in an effort to gain traffic. Still, they didn't make up Deary's comments, even if they did sensationalise them.

For some context: in the UK a lot of local libraries are being closed down due to lack of funding - local councils have limited funding and are responsible for, as well as libraries, local roads, rubbish and recycling collection, drains, cleaning and maintaining public buildings and parks, and so on. Libraries are considered least important, being as they are used by the fewest people and not a health, safety or hygiene concern, and are being cut the most brutally.

I've blogged about it but would be interested to hear other opinions - especially since a lot of people here aren't UK based and can thus offer a different perspective based on their own, different experiences with public libraries.


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## Devor (Feb 19, 2013)

My wife works at a library with "more than 100,000 books," a number they literally made up because they lost count (it's several times that many).  So this isn't easy for me to say.  But your basic borrow-a-book-to-read library is on its way out.  There's no point to maintaining an expensive collection of books when people can borrow books online.

Put up a computer lab and rent out kindles at the rec center, and skip the big building.  Consolidating services into one location would probably be a good way to promote them, anyways.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 19, 2013)

Holy cow! This is astonishing. I feel libraries are so incredibly important and useful. 

Speaking from a civilization viewpoint, closing a library is closing off an incredible source of knowledge and learning. Speaking from an author viewpoint, they are valuable tools in getting exposure. Speaking from a consumer viewpoint, I cannot imagine how my life would be without my local library (read: I can imagine it, but it would be too horrific). 

That said, I definitely think they need to manage themselves better.

Interesting difference between the UK and USA I found out from the first article you linked. In America, an author receives no recompense from library borrows of their book. They get royalties from the copy of the book the library buys, but that's it.


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## ThinkerX (Feb 19, 2013)

In my currently frozen (and snowy)corner of the world...

The library I frequent completed a major expansion a year and some ago.

A second library in a neighboring town is doubling in size.

For years, the various kid oriented reading groups have made the library a sort of alternative daycare. 

Several groups (writers, geneologists, and others) meet there on a regular basis.  

I do see a lot of activity on the public computer terminals at the library, though.

I mostly go there to scan the new books, check out older series I missed, read selected magazines, and the local paper.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Feb 20, 2013)

> But despite the negative reaction to his comments, the Horrible Histories author is adamant that the public attitude around libraries "has to change". "People have to make the choice to buy books. People will happily buy a cinema ticket to see Roald Dahl's Matilda, and expect to get the book for free. It doesn't make sense,"





> "What other entertainment do we expect to get for free?" he asked.



...What, are these quotes from _1995?_ 

Newsflash, old-timer: If someone wants to see Mathilda today, they will most likely pirate it off the internet. These days people expect to get _all _their entertainment for free. At least the public library system is an established and time-tested legal option, and probably the only reason people aren't bothering to print out your entire collected works from them newfangled computation machines of theirs.


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## Chilari (Feb 20, 2013)

It is true that the role of libraries is changing - increasingly it's possible to read books and short stories for free online or on e-readers, but in such cases it's the author who offers the books for free, not a third party. But libraries are more than places to get a book to read. Libraries are also community hubs - I know of at least three groups including the local history group that meet regularly in my local library's community room. They're places people without internet access can get onto the internet for free. They're sources of information for people interested in educating themselves on a vast variety of topics that aren't always easily available online.

But they are still being used. If libraries were constantly empty, the volunteers and staff sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the one customer of the morning, it would be a different thing, but I don't see that in even my little local library, or the one I used back in Leicester which was even smaller. I always see lots of other people using the libraries. My local library in conjunction with a local independent bookshop also organises author talks and book signings, of which I have gone to two, which have been very interesting and had a great community feel to them and attracted a lot of people - about 150 to 200 for each one (which in a small rural town of 12,000 people where the local league hockey and cricket matches attract crowds of fewer than a dozen isn't too bad).

So yeah, maybe the role of libraries in society isn't the same as it used to be, but that doesn't mean they should be shut down, or that they're not relevant any more. They're still relevant, they just don't have the same role as they once did - because the world continues to change and libraries are changing with it. But without my local library, where would the local history group meet - and where would they put up their posters and displays of local finds and photos of times past where any passersby can see them and learn about the town we live in? Where would the grandfathers check their email? Where would the local parents take their children for an afternoon in the school holidays when it's raining without having to pay money?

For as long as they're being used, libraries remain relevant. Just because there are other ways of reading books for free doesn't mean libraries are obsolete, any more than the fact that some books are free (either in libraries or simply free to download off Amazon etc) is stopping anyone from buying other books that are not free.


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## Devor (Feb 20, 2013)

Chilari said:


> But they are still being used.



I don't really think that's the question.  I think the question is how many of the library's services can or cannot be replicated, even improved, without the expense?

I mentioned the typical rec center as a good place to replicate some of those services, and I guess I don't really know what you have in the UK.  But rec centers in the US have rooms set up for group organizations, a gym, playgrounds and parks on the facility, and so on.  I think some of them have computer labs and a study-hall type area already, but I'm not sure.

If the library is a community hub, so is the rec center.  If the library is a gathering place for social groups, so is the rec center.

At the library I grew up with, over half the building - which has to be rented, lit, air conditioned and heated - was nothing but shelves.  Only a very few of those shelves were reference materials.  You could fit the reference materials against the walls of my bedroom.  The rest was seating and a small computer lab.

Insomuch as a library is a place to borrow books, that service can (or can soon) be replicated on your Kindle, and that half of the building can be replaced by just renting out Kindles.

Insomuch as the library is a community hot spot, there are others like the rec center, and it would serve better to build them up than to try and imitate them elsewhere.

Insomuch as the library is a research center, well, there you have value that's hard to imitate at present, but maybe not in the next decade.  But how much is the typical public library a research center?  I guess your mileage may vary.  In the library I grew up with, again, I think the reference materials could be made available lining a small room at a rec center.  In the Public Libraries I've seen in New York?  Much less so.

The library my wife works at is affiliated with a research university and is all reference materials.  They don't have Harry Potter, except in French and Latin, for the foreign language classes.


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## CupofJoe (Feb 20, 2013)

Devor said:


> Consolidating services into one location would probably be a good way to promote them, anyways.


But where do you put that one location? 
In a city you may only be a few minutes walk or a short bus/tram/train ride away from any centre but elsewhere a car quickly becomes essential...
Even in my parents' not too rural location my father has to drive nearly 10 miles to get to his "local" library [The county library is 30+ miles away]. Luckily he uses and is prepared to pay for inter-library loans so he has access to just about every book in the UK library system and can afford the time and money to travel to his library.
For me an answer might be closer to the Amazon Locker system. Drop boxes in lots of locations. You choose what you want on-line. They deliver and collect from an agreed location. You "sign" to collect or return.
All you need to do now is to make sure everyone has internet access and the skills and equipment to use it.
I've tried several Kindles, Nooks and Kobos and I can't stand any of them. I hate to think that they are they only "future" for books.


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## Chilari (Feb 20, 2013)

In the cities it might be beneficial to consolidate into one location - I know this has been done to a certain extent in Leicester already. But in rural areas consolidation isn't an option. There's only the one library, the one location available. If my local library were to close, the nearest would be 14 miles away in Wolverhampton, which utterly undermines the community aspect of things and cuts accessibility for anyone without a car (buses are expensive, irregular, dirty and often late, and they get cancelled at the first sign of snow or flood because the diversion routes are tiny little winding side roads and thus aren't traversable by a bus).

Now, if the local library were to move to a different location within town, there'd be other problems. There's no space in the Town Hall - which anyway is a historical building used more as a tourist attraction than a public service (it does have some nice stained glass windows), and which anyway doesn't have effective heating (because of the building's Listed status putting restrictions on alterations) and doesn't have disabled access (it's all upstairs; the ground floor is open to the elements and the site of the Friday market. The location is good, though: it's slap bang in the middle of the High Street. Literally. Cars used to drive under it when the High Street was still two-way.

There's the Leisure Centre as an option too, where the swimming pool and other sports facilities are, but there's no space there to expand the building so having the library there would mean the squash courts or one of the activity halls would be lost in its place. Plus again there's an access issue, as there's only one lift in the whole building and nothing is on the ground floor except the entrance and swimming pool. Also there's not enough car parking - it's a small, crowded car park primarily used by leisure centre staff as it is. To make it worse, the leisure centre is half blocked off for use by the neighbouring school during the school day; the library would be inaccessible to anyone during the school day. Added problem is the the leisure centre is up in an area of town which doesn't exactly have good access - the road leading up to it, and a few houses, is narrow because of old houses built either side, so a car can't go in if another is coming out. And there are no pavements for a short section, meaning it's not safe for pedestrians if it's busy and practically impossible for people in wheelchairs or with pushchairs.

The current location, however, has no problem with access - not a single step or stair in the building or outside it - no problem with car parking, no clash with neighbouring facilities (because there aren't any), and has a visible town centre location for display of local history information.

Now, this post has got a bit long, but my point is that while maybe costs do need to be cut because of the budgetary constraints of local councils, a blanket approach to libraries isn't appropriate, because each community has a different level of access to libraries, different benefits from libraries, and different individual circumstances that would determine courses of action. In another town, it might be that their leisure centre (or other facility) and library can happily merge with no adverse effects, but in my town the neighbouring school uses half the leisure centre a lot of the school day, the parking is terrible and there are major access issues for the frail and disabled at all locations except the current one.

And attacking libraries as irrelevant because they can just lend Kindles - or aren't needed because there're only used by the middle classes and not by the poor as Terry Deary claims - isn't right either. Well, yes, libraries could lend Kindles, but how much would that cost to set up and maintain? What happens if someone drops a borrowed Kindle on the floor and breaks it? What happens to all the books already in the library? What about books that aren't available in e-book format yet? What about people who don't understand or like or trust technology like Kindles? What about licensing - what would Amazon think of people borrowing Kindles from libraries when there's DRM etc preventing books on a Kindle from being transfered to someone else? How do you keep track of how many times a book has been borrowed - and thus how much an author gets paid under the library loans premium - when using Kindles?

As for the research/reference side of things: while the majority of my local library's shelf space is taken up by fiction and the children's section, there's a sizable area dedicated to non-fiction topics including local history. We've also got a reference copy of each edition of the local newspaper dating back to when it started about 100 years ago, which is quite a lot of newspapers. I know they're been used extensively by the local history group, as well as those interested in their ancestry looking for mention of their parents or grandparents etc in the "births, marriages and deaths" section. My fiance's father's obituary is in there somewhere. And it is used. I often see someone in there poring over an old newspaper. We've got quite a strong local history support, probably because of how old the town is - about 1200 years - and it's place in various conflicts from the English Civil War to World War 2.

This stuff cannot be replicated without expense. The community aspect might be movable, sure - there are lots of pubs around with upstairs rooms they either rent out or allow to be used for free by community groups, and my Mum meets above a pub for her amateur dramatics society. But the books can't be replaced by Kindles by any stretch of the imagination - they're not all available in Kindle, those with maps and illustrations don't translate to Kindle well, especially when they've got large pages, Amazon wouldn't be happy and it wouldn't be viable from a cost or organisational perspective. Then there's the kids books with pop-up sections or holes cut in the pages so you can see through to the next page - that just would not work in Kindle. The newspapers would take months to digistise, if not years - and not cheaply either - and would not be as easy to use in digital format because of the nature of turning pages, and make the unaccessible to anyone without an internet connection.

Basically, trying to "upgrade" libraries and make everything digital and modern would just be more expensive than it's worth and undermine community, while cutting off and leaving behind anyone who lacks the finances or ability to use the internet.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 20, 2013)

Devor said:


> I don't really think that's the question.  I think the question is how many of the library's services can or cannot be replicated, even improved, without the expense?
> 
> I mentioned the typical rec center as a good place to replicate some of those services, and I guess I don't really know what you have in the UK.  But rec centers in the US have rooms set up for group organizations, a gym, playgrounds and parks on the facility, and so on.  I think some of them have computer labs and a study-hall type area already, but I'm not sure.
> 
> ...



What's a rec center?

Just teasing, but seriously. I know of NO so-called rec centers anywhere near me, and yet I know the exact locations of five libraries within a twenty mile diameter (there's probably more I don't know of). Now, do I think we need five+ libraries within twenty miles? No, but it would be cool if that was the norm. 

I really can't see the merits in closing all libraries. I can understand restructuring and consolidating and redirecting their focuses, but I treasure my library. And the poor argument does have its merits. I've always loved my library, regularly getting books there to preview or read before purchasing if I enjoyed them. Once I "fell on hard times", getting my pay shredded and being forced to work multiple jobs to make half what I was making, my fiancee and I really started to _rely_ on our library. Information, books and the occasional movie. I wouldn't be able to read 90% of what I get to without our library. If this service was closed to me, I'd be lost. I would like to buy every book written by Mythic Scribes members, but over the course of the last year I've only been ABLE to buy one (and downloaded two shorts during free promotions). If my library had your (you, being anyone reading this), then you can guarantee I would have read it by now and probably posted a review. 

Any book I've read in the last three years I've either borrowed them from my brother or borrowed them from the library. I wouldn't be able to be who I am without my library.


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## Steerpike (Feb 20, 2013)

It's heading digital at some point, but for the foreseeable future I think libraries with physical books are going to be around and are going to be important. Increasingly, they'll move to lending books in electronic form for people to use on their own devices. I know people here who borrow from libraries in other parts of the country and read the books on their Kindle. At some point, as physical copies of books wear out, it will make more sense to grow the digital library and shrink the physical one. But we're not there yet.


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## Devor (Feb 20, 2013)

Chilari, I think you're overstating the difficulty of transitioning and understating the costs of the modern library.  Also, I can't really comment on the municipal infrastructure of your home town.

I'm just saying, most libraries are going to follow bookstores out the door.  I'd be surprised if Amazon isn't looking into partners for renting out Kindles, and if that doesn't happen in the next five years.  Historical reference materials are being digitized - special scanners for that are available cheaply.  Publishers are moving towards digital releases at a snail's pace, but they are moving in that direction.  The larger Kindles and iPads are being developed with newspapers and textbooks and comic books in mind.

It's happening.  Printed books won't disappear, but the need to put huge numbers of them on display will - printing is cheap and getting cheaper, it's storage that's expensive.  Rent and electric for a public building are through the roof and getting worse.  And libraries take a pretty large building just for books.  Where's the need?


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## Zero Angel (Feb 20, 2013)

I think we're all missing a HUGE point: 

Unless you keep your electronics in a Faraday cage and have a reliable energy source, in the apocalypse all of our digital information will be lost. Even if you take precautions, we will lose the ability to manufacture replacement parts for our electronics. In the coming digital age, libraries must stand strong and transition into arks of knowledge to bring needed enlightenment to the rebuilding civilizations of the post-apocalyptic future.


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## Devor (Feb 20, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> Unless you keep your electronics in a Faraday cage and have a reliable energy source, in the apocalypse all of our digital information will be lost.



Yeah, but everybody knows that before _that_ apocalypse comes the cybernetic apocalypse, and all but a handful of the remaining libraries will be targeted by the robotic drone bombers.  Why keep a library and call that kind of attention to your neighborhood?  Just so you can be one of the three or four that rise up in the aftermath of a still-more-distant apocalypse?  It's just too big a risk.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 20, 2013)

Devor said:


> Yeah, but everybody knows that before _that_ apocalypse comes the cybernetic apocalypse, and all but a handful of the remaining libraries will be targeted by the robotic drone bombers.  Why keep a library and call that kind of attention to your neighborhood?  Just so you can be one of the three or four that rise up in the aftermath of a still-more-distant apocalypse?  It's just too big a risk.



You've convinced me. We need underground bunker libraries NOW


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## CupofJoe (Feb 21, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> You've convinced me. We need underground bunker libraries NOW


Ahem - Some people are waaaaay ahead of you - 

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

I'm sure there is room for a few [hundred million] books...


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## Chilari (Feb 21, 2013)

Good point, when the inevitable apocalypse arrives we will need books. Excuse me while I buy books on creating rudimentary electronics, ceramics, smelting, farming, kitchen gardening, wild plants and mushrooms and whether they're safe to eat, structural engineering with wood, thatching, flintknapping, insulation, cheesemaking...

Before we can rebuild civilisation, though, we might have to burn books as fuel through the nuclear and/or climate-change induced long winter. But it's okay, there are a lot of books I can think of that are more suited to burning than our favourites. Law books, for a start. Certain fiction authors.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 22, 2013)

CupofJoe said:


> Ahem - Some people are waaaaay ahead of you -
> 
> Svalbard Global Seed Vault
> 
> I'm sure there is room for a few [hundred million] books...



There's also at least one harvesting the DNA of endangered animals and cryoing it. The seeds aren't necessarily for a "true" apocalypse. We have seed banks in America too (especially for corn), because with genetic engineering everything is too similar and vulnerable to epidemic/pandemic. 



Chilari said:


> Good point, when the inevitable apocalypse arrives we will need books. Excuse me while I buy books on creating rudimentary electronics, ceramics, smelting, farming, kitchen gardening, wild plants and mushrooms and whether they're safe to eat, structural engineering with wood, thatching, flintknapping, insulation, cheesemaking...
> 
> Before we can rebuild civilisation, though, we might have to burn books as fuel through the nuclear and/or climate-change induced long winter. But it's okay, there are a lot of books I can think of that are more suited to burning than our favourites. Law books, for a start. Certain fiction authors.



You don't necessarily need to buy them—just loot your local library! (so long as they still exist  )


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## Shockley (Feb 25, 2013)

Everything I've learned I learned at a library.


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## Darkblade (Mar 3, 2013)

I'm kind of surprised Amazon or any of the other e-book distributors haven't tried a digital library function. Where you can get free copies of e-books but they will lock you out of reading them after a certain time period has passed say a week or two. Then the file can be unlocked by purchasing the book.

I know little about the coding for an e-book so this might not be feasible but it seems to be a valid, if crude way of dealing with libraries and piracy at the same time.


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## Chilari (Mar 3, 2013)

Amazon prime users can read some books for free that others must pay for, but I don't know whether that's treated as a loan or purchase.


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