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Drastic Action Needed to Reverse U.K. Library Decline, Says ParliamentParliament’s Culture, Media, and Sport Committee released a report March 10 calling for “urgent action” to reverse the decline of public libraries in the United Kingdom. Spending on books is down, as is the number of loans and visitors, the report says, and “we regard a situation in which core performance indicators, and gross throughput are falling—but overall costs are rising—as a signal of a service in distress. This must be reversed.”The report contains 42 conclusions and recommendations, among them that books and other traditional materials “must be the bedrock upon which the library services rest.” It states further that the “explosion of relevant new technologies has to be embraced by institutions but this should be done in the context of their key functions to gather, order, present, and disseminate challenging as well as relevant material and information for their local communities.” “Libraries, together with their staff, are a trusted civic amenity—highly valued, safe public spaces and storehouses of advice, information, and knowledge—without which the citizens of Britain would be very much the poorer,” the committee concluded. A key portion of the report focuses on the ways and means of refurbishing the nation’s library buildings, at an estimated cost of up to £650 million (roughly $1.2 billion). Last April, a report from the same committee concluded that public libraries faced a crisis that could make them unused and irrelevant by 2020. Meanwhile a new report from the U.K.-based Laser Foundation, based on a two-day seminar for librarians last year, recommends that library services must follow retailing in being “customer-led.” Posted March 25, 2005. |
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