We must protect our history

Published: 9 June, 2011

• IN this period of savage cuts in public expenditure it is vital to do everything possible to maintain the social fabric of everyday life.

Libraries are central to this. They give Camden a local accessible presence for all who work and live in the borough. The suggestion that the Local Studies Archive can be handed over to somebody outside the council to look after completely misses the social importance of local history.

These archives are continuously being added to. They need to be managed by people knowledgeable of the complex contents. It is suggested that fewer people use this particular library service compared with others. This misses the nature of this particular service.

It is both complex and intense: many of the users are engaging with other groups, for example, the Camden New Town History Project. It will have two of its members spending days exploring the archives reporting back to the group at its monthly meetings and eventually producing displays, films and exhibitions for this particular area of Camden. The archives provide a rich resource of Camden past. Strengthening our links with that past is essential for our survival in the present turbulent times.

JOHN COWLEY
Member of Camden
New Town History Project

A luxury…

• SERVICES like the Local Studies Archive have to be balanced with providing services for disabled children and adult social care.

In these times of austerity we need the council to prioritise.

Therefore, what is the problem with relocating the archives to another storage area in order to save money?

The council is not closing them and they will still be available for residents in another location.

People need to wake up to the situation we’re in. These are difficult times and the archives are a luxury that local areas can’t afford because of the Tory government and the cuts they’re forcing councillors to make.

SABRINA FRANCIS, NW1

Good idea?

• TOWER Hamlets council now call their libraries 'Idea Stores' where they combine aspects of a traditional library with information services and classes.

R LANE
Frognal, NW3

So cynical

• THE timing of the announcements and decision making processes regarding the deferred closure of the three libraries must take the biscuit for plumbing a depth of cynicism that even Camden Council officials have not previously achieved.

The publishing of the“report” text and the subsequent extremely tight schedule of voting effectively ruled out public debate about the “options” in the pages of the New Journal, one of the staunchest allies of the libraries campaign down the years, and the main forum in the borough for discussion about council issues.

But libraries represent far too much that is valuable (knowledge, reason, enjoyment, learning, togetherness, and so on) for them to get lost under the scalpels of messrs Osborne, Clegg, and others. Libraries will undoubtedly win again.

The fight last time was successful mainly because of a common sense of purpose adopted by members of all political parties. We may now reaffirm our hope that enough of our councillors – of all political persuasions – will recall a bit of local history a decade or so ago (all there in Holborn Library archives: catch it before they sweep it away) and challenge the malign logic adopted by their Westminster counterparts

TOM SELWYN
Former chair, Camden Public Libraries Users Group, NW1

Luke warm

• I WAS worried to hear about Camden’s plan to take three libraries out of council management.

Ironic, too, that these three libraries – Heath, Belsize and Chalk Farm – have attracted such vociferous support, and this is their reward.

Camden’s own commitment to the libraries seems strangely luke warm. To ask a funny-sounding question: why did they want a “consultation” on libraries in the first place?

Surely not to learn that libraries are valued by the community.

To state the obvious, libraries offer books and computers alike to those that do not have them in their own home. They offer a quiet place for study or reading to anyone, everyone. They are benign public spaces, not yet privatised, where knowledge is both valued and free. To many of us they represent what is best in civic life.

Why not keep all 13 libraries within Camden open and within council management, but cut hours instead? It is a pity to have hours reduced, but it is not a tragedy.

At least each library will remain alive and locally available.

KATHY O’SHAUGHNESSY
Rona Road, NW3

Legal action

• LIBRARIES cannot be managed by friends of libraries and volunteers.

To run libraries, large and small, there must be librarians trained for a number of years so that they must be fully conversant in helping the library users in their own interest.

Councillor Andrew Mennear said that the idea of using volunteers was similar to the flagship “Big Society”.

I doubt very much that a large number of people are prepared to give up their time. I strongly think my good friend Councillor Flick Rea is right when she says “at worst it won’t work”.

I am greatly disappointed that most of my own party members won’t do anything to keep libraries open by using the reserve fund.

If Camden Public Libraries Users Group takes legal action against the council I will contribute as much as I can.

RAMEN BHATTACHARYYA
Ex-Labour Mayor of Camden

Opportunity

• IT is with some optimism that we should meet the news that they will hand over three libraries, by 2013, to community control.

This could also be seen as an opportunity for civil society to play a vital role in meeting the needs of the community. The council has taken the first step and is offering support to anyone interested in running libraries; it is now time to step forward to ensure these precious institutions remain.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW3

Payback

• THE government assures us that its policies will ensure economic recovery.

We may therefore, reasonably demand of the council, a binding commitment that, whatever the measures presently taken, library funding will be restored to its 2010 level, within – let’s say – four years.

DAI VAUGHAN
Mill Lane, NW6

Knowledge

• A LOT has been written about the outstanding quality of the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre.

An aspect of its work which has not been highlighted is their series of exhibitions which bring to life the history of the borough in an extraordinarily vivid way. These rely very much on the intimate knowledge that the archivists have of both the collections and of the borough.

It is highly unlikely that this quality could be maintained under any other guardianship.

LIZ FRASER
Lamb’s Conduit Street, WC1

Hyperbole

• THE self-righteous hyperbole that I constantly read in the New Journal from well-to-do, middle-class, liberals unfailingly misses this point.

In their shrill demands for the preservation of current spending on libraries they are effectively arguing for a transfer of resources away from the life-transforming services for the poor, elderly and young. In the current environment libraries are a luxury and must come second.