CNJ Comment - Shhh! They’re sneaking up on libraries again

Published: 1 July, 2010

BOOK by book, Camden’s libraries have been emasculated after years of retrenchment.

The Camden Library Service expenditure on books has, for many years, been below the average for inner London.

The council has, to its credit, refurbished Kentish Town Library.

But, increasingly, librarians are being replaced by self-service machines. Now two libraries – in Belsize Park and Chalk Farm – are under threat.

Will they become another casualty of the 25 per cent budget cuts championed by George Osborne.

At the council meeting this week Labour looked uncomfortable – a hint, perhaps, that if they are compelled to make cuts it is libraries that will feel them.

While Labour, therefore, are not prepared to guarantee the future of libraries, a backlash – from the the public, booksellers and Camden’s prominent authors –  is a certainty.

There is some fantastic work that goes on in libraries, most of which significantly helps to develop a more literate society.

Retreating on facilities that inform, educate and enrich people’s skills and learning would deprive people of support at a challenging time.

Libraries are always the first to feel the axe when times are hard. Is this because too many politicians, often pressed for time, are strangers to books?

Homes before a research centre?

IS the battle of Brill Place lost?

For more than a year the shadow of a plan to build Britain’s biggest medical research centre on the site behind the British Library has hovered over Somers Town.

Why can’t the existing centre in Mill Hill be transformed?

Wouldn’t it be better to build homes in Brill Place? After a long campaign by residents these questions remain unanswered.

Soundings at the Town Hall produce predictable statements of a “let’s wait and see” approach from senior councillors.

It is hard to imagine that the council will be able to resist powerful pressure from leading academics and scientists who want to see the research centre in Brill Place.

The case against it was presented by worried residents at the full council meeting on Monday but there was no debate.

Perhaps significantly, Labour councillor Peter Brayshaw was allowed to fill the whole slot allotted to the deputation with five questions, effectively, critical of their campaign.

Was this, somehow, reflective of Labour group policy?