The Shape of Things to Come?

Last year I had the good fortune to travel to England, and, being a librarian, I, of course, visited a number of libraries.  What I discovered was discouraging.  Public Libraries in the U.K. are being gutted by funding cuts. A case in point is the Library of Birmingham. Opened in 2013 to great acclaim, it is the largest public library in the European Union--ten stories tall--with a large collection, public meeting spaces, and a Shakespeare Memorial Room at it apex that houses one of the most important collections of Shakespeariana in the world.



Then, one year later, Birmingham Council announced that it was slashing the library budget, forcing the library to lay off half its staff and reduce its opening hours from 74 to 40 per week. What happened in Birmingham is happening all across the U.K..  324 libraries have closed since 2011. 400 libraries are now run entirely by volunteers with varying levels of local support.  It's no wonder that a research study  conducted in 2014 showed that library visits across the U.K. had declined by 40 million visitors in 4 years.  It's the old vicious circle: cut the funding and the libraries can't offer the same levels of service they used to, so people stop coming. Then funding is pulled altogether because attendance is down. And of course the areas that are most affected are those with the poorest economies, where the libraries are really needed.

Fortunately, things have not reached this state in Canada.  Support for public libraries remains high. Even non-library users, when asked, tend to feel that a public library is an important public institution and worthy of public support. But it is important to keep the British example in mind, if only as a warning of how things might go, if we do not take care.

Where we do need to worry in Canada is at the national level, where numerous science libraries have been closed and funding cutbacks to the National Library and Archives of Canada have left the institution seriously compromised.

--Ken Haigh