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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Do You Want Me to Lose my Job?- Libraries, Librarians and the Public Perception.

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Our Lady of The Two Towers

20:02 / 15.10.03

And coffee bars? This is part of the 'lets make libraries more like bookshops' vibe that I've not really understood. "You want a coffee bar in the library? Sure, why not? In fact, why don't we make it a library/restaurant? We could call it TFThey've Got the New John Grisham Novel In! In fact, why not make it a combines library/restaurant/ice rink? Who wants to be doing something boring like reading a book when they could be doing it while skating!"

In the real world, we were going to have a coffee bar in our library as part of the refurbishment, the public complained, it's not going to happen any more. I don't believe people are going to go "Oh, I'd love to get a book out but... I'm so parched! I'll have to go to Starbucks instead!" I'd be interested to know whether places like Books etc and Borders who have cafes break even or make a profit in there or whether they suck up a loss from profit in other areas.

06:27 / 16.10.03

Our Lady of the Hours> In fact, the cafe in a bookshop is often its most profitable part. When you think about it, the margin on a cup of coffee as a % of its retail value is probably higher than that on a book (esp. after discounting). And cups of coffee generally flow quicker through a cafe than books come off shelves.

The actual share of revenue probably wouldn't be that high tho.

09:31 / 16.10.03

There's a coffee shop in the same building as my local library. You do have to take out the books properly first though, and the mocha was not that pleasant. I shall aim to try the cakes and report back on those, to help with this important coffee shop/library research.

I visited a Borders in the US, and instead of having Starbucks in there, like they seem to have in the UK branches, they sold pumpkin coffee, cider (I suppose this would be some kind of non-alcoholic variety though), and also tie-in drinks such as Lemony Snicket smoothies. Maybe I should print some lists of the favourite drinks of various fictional characters and distribute them in my library's coffee shop, just to make coffee-drinking more relevant to books.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:50 / 16.10.03

I shall aim to try the cakes and report back on those, to help with this important coffee shop/library research.

I think that's what I love most about this board... the lengths to which people are willing to go to help out the community as a whole.

I think the idea of coffee is more logical when considered in the context of (Jesus, when did I start getting all high-falutin'?) library as place for research rather than merely source for books to read at home. If you're poring over dusty old texts all day, a couple of cups of coffee would probably be welcome. (However, if you were pouring over dusty old texts, clerk-on-patron violence would be necessary.

11:06 / 16.10.03

Yes, a coffee shop would be very welcome in my university library. I understand those enlightened chaps at North Fens Poly have a cafe in the university library - here, however, the nearest cheap cuppa is the History Faculty common-room (open for about 5 minutes at some unannounced point in the morning, turn up and join the scrum for 40p jammy dodgers), and after that there's the franchise in Blackwell's bookshop and various other cafe Neros etc. V. poor.

There is a cafe on the top floor of Portsmouth Central Library, though it's not mixed in with the books. However, my father says that when he ordered a cappuccino there, he spied them making it by spooning special cappuccino mix out of a tin and then adding hot water from the kettle, so perhaps it doesn't really qualify as selling coffee...

Flowers, I should like to add that in the People's Repulbic of Barbelith I would actually have living quarters in the library and therefore late-night opening would not be a problem.

wembley can change in 28 days

12:34 / 16.10.03

About the Univeristy of Toronto library: I miss this juggernaut! 13 floors (although the 13th is called the 14th) and over 40 million books in the U of T library system... I remember when the U of T people came to my hometown to give a presentation on the university, there is only one phrase I remember from the bespectacled man standing at the front of the room:

"If you can't find a book in the U of T library system, there are two possibilities: 1, we will get it for you. 2, the book doesn't exist."

Not a hard sell after all, as we see. I used to hang out on the 12th floor (near the drama reading room) and gaze out the huge corner windows at the gorgeous Toronto skyline. In fact, I had the not-all-that-rare pleasure, during my U of T career, to get locked in overnight. It's fairly easy, especially if you're in a study room without a clock and don't notice the lights dimming outside your study room. Suddenly you feel the unnerving onset of absolute quiet that can only be brought about when you're surrounded by thousands of books in foreign languages and the library staff have killed the elevator power. Some people actually plan to stay there overnight and bring a bit of food or what-have-you. They don't let you in to the stacks unless you flash your student card, though, so squatters are rare.

13:36 / 19.10.03

I love my library, use it almost every day, and I love my librarian. A lot.
I've noticed a decline in library usage in the larger cities of the States recently, but attendance seems to be gaining steam again with availability of computers. I'm lucky enough not to live in the gray metropolis, and out here, the library is an essential meeting place for the community. In fact, I met all of my local friends there initially, and continue to make new ones among the books. In small towns like my own, it's about the only place to hear authors speak, check in with the Audobon (sp?) Society, or learn how to spin your own thread. I myself am a book possessor, I do research at my library and check out books of marginal interest to me, so I primarily use the lib as a meeting place and lecture hall. Our library also displays art, so that's another sweetener.

10:07 / 20.10.03

In fact, the cafe in a bookshop is often its most profitable part.

Slighly off the point re. libraries, but I'd say, in response to the point above, profitable to whom? With all the coffee units in railway stations and so on I bet all the money is going to some wankercuntshit Private Finance Initative concern rather than into the pockets of the institution concerned. I has to go to hospital last week and was Shocked and Appalled to find a fucking Starbucks equivalent in there as well - is nowhere safe? They're going to set up in my fucking kitchen next and charge me £5 for my morning cup of tea. I imagine the local authority or whoever gets some kind of donation but the lions share of the profits go to private companies. It's a visible example of the way in which our public services are being colonised by public companies and I wish they'd FUCK FUCK FUCK RIGHT OFF.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:53 / 20.10.03

If we did have a cafe in our library it wouldn't be run by the council, we were looking at getting < shudder > Starbucks in to do the job, old-timers might remeber me asking a few years back for information that I could use to fight it if it became a real possibility, luckily it didn't come to that.

No star here laces

15:21 / 03.05.04

So, merging my new thread with this'n - the reason is books getting cheaper, relative to income.

My suggestion is noticeboards for literate singles in libraries. People could leave messages in books they like in search of like minds. Much better than the internet.

17:04 / 03.05.04

I love university libraries. Most specifically Senate House, which is perfect as libraries go. I would very much like to get locked in there. When I finished my BA I did actually consider paying the huge charge to use the library as a member of the public:

The sad fact is, that my local public library doesn't really compare. I went in once, and it didn't seem to have much that was interesting. Also, now I am a Working Girl, it isn't open at any time I might want to use it.

Goldsmith's uni library *does* occasionally give students amnesities, as I found out in my final year. But only occasionally, not as a rule, I think. I did have about a fifty squid fine, so maybe they just took pity on me

I would love to go to a proper, nice library again. Maybe there is one in Canary Wharf I can hang out in during my lunch hour. That said, I have about a million books in my pile right now. My boyfriend used to be a bookseller, so we have some accumulation happening on the book front.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:09 / 03.05.04

Well, the next question is what exactly a library is for. My local library I use for teen romances, mainly, but it has recently set up a bank of Internet-connected PCs, which people without access to PCs can use to search for info, jobs, write CVs etc. I don't think they charge for it - you sign up and they give you a time slot. That's not exactly the core function of a library, although it is probably more so than selling coffee, but it is a useful service offered to the less well-off members of the community, using a public building, which might be a way to think of the library of the future - a set of bundled information services offered to people who don't have the resources to obtain them for themselves.

So... there's that. On the higher-end level, I like the idea of literature personals, local events planned around books, organising reading groups - that sort of thing. The Poetry Library has a board for people to put up snippets of poems they don't quite remember for others to help them out with, which struck me as a very useful and very simple way to leverage the flowthrough of poetry enthusiasts...

17:48 / 03.05.04

I forgot about the Poetry Library. That's another Really Nice library. I love that they have, I'm guessing, basically every poetry zine published to look at. When I wanted to be a poet I used to hang out in there loads. But, again, it's very different to a more general public library.

18:20 / 03.05.04

I love the library. When I was in Glasgow I used to spend loads of time in the library, partly because I wasn't working and thus had the time, and partly because of the service, which rocked.
Now I'm working down south I joined the library down here but it isn't a patch on the Weegie service. There's no choice of books, the science fiction section seems to have nothing in it but Games Workshop spin off novels (which are dire btw), and it's never open.
The other thing reducing my library use is as I'm working I can afford to buy more books now, though they still have to be second hand.
I feel however that libraries provide a vital service for the community. Firstly and most importantly they enable those without a lot of money to access books cheaply and easily. However this is exactly the type of service local government seems to be getting rid of. The access to the internet and computers they offer is also an increasingly vital service (though it shouldn't be funded at the expense of books).
Basically, libraries are good, and should be given lots of money. Not the most controversial of stances, but one I can stand behind without reservations.

19:28 / 03.05.04

Where is the Poetry Library? I have a snippet of a poem I need to pin up. What a wonderful idea to have a whole library dedicated to poetry.

Libraries are also good for kids reading events, travelling theatre workshops and the like, especially in rural areas because the children don't get as much access to that kind of thing as city kids do. Local libraries (with someone running it who cares) that go in for reading events make me very happy indeed.

Plus, libraries give the W.I. somewhere to sell jam on a friday.

20:28 / 03.05.04

05:42 / 04.05.04

And coffee bars? This is part of the 'lets make libraries more like bookshops' vibe that I've not really understood.

To me, drinking hot liquid and reading/studying are inextricably linked. Beats me why, that's just how it is. I would be perfectly content with, rather than a coffee bar, mugs and some karma coffee (where you've got a jar that you put a buck in when you get coffee, 'cause coffee's cheap enough that 85% of the population being honest is sufficient).

09:22 / 04.05.04

I work in Senate House - how odd, to see a picture of the office on Barbelith... (Staff perks include free use of the library & reference privileges in the SAS Institute libraries, hooray). The ULL is a good library, esp. since you can call a lot of stuff up from Stacks and then borrow it. However, it suffers from a problem common to many libraries, which is that what is on the shelves often doesn't match what is in the catalogue... through no fault of the librarians, I am sure, but still irritating. Also there is not enough room to work properly - not enough seats. Now the Bodleian and the British Library - those are proper working libraries.

But to return to the topic - I understand that key library users (for book-borrowing) are children and older people, and that among the older users the most frequent complaints are to do with the stock, and the lack of variety/amount of it (I can't remember where I read this - the Guardian, probably, I can go and find a reference in a tick if you like). How to balance the demands of different sectors of library users and meet the ever-decreasing budgets provided by local councils?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:27 / 07.05.04

Grrr (bad report in evil pdf).
The people responsible.
My less-than-measured responses here and here.

So, what do you think? Am I crazy and unreasonable to shout that whilst you might want to make a library look like a bookshop (though I'm still unconvinced of that) you shouldn't be looking to bookshops as a model for how you run a library?

00:22 / 09.05.04

Well haven't I picked a great time to finally get an interview for a library job..

wish me luck.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:02 / 10.05.04

Cool, let me know if you get it. And remember, while the author of the report makes some interesting suggestions that should be looked at his credentials as any kind of expert on libraries are in question and the report suggests that Hampshire libraries can be scaled up to be used to damn every library authority in the country.

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