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BOOK WORM TURNS OVER LIBRARY REFURB

01-02-2008

There are big changes afoot at Birmingham’s Central Library when two key departments re-open today. But bookworms are telling The Stirrer that they’ll get access to fewer books for less time than before.

The Archives and Local History sections have been shut for a month, and following a refurb, management claim it all adds up to a “service enhancement”. Regular users argue that in truth it will lead to a further rolling back of what they see as the library’s core function.

Archives has relocated from Floor 7(now closed) which was accessible to the public only via a narrow spiral staircase. This department now sits alongside the Local History Department on Floor 6, which has both a both lift and an escalator.

On the plus side, this means that the elderly and disabled can get there more easily – and everyone will benefit from better lighting and an increase in the availability of online material.

Other changes are proving more controversial, though,with the local history section badly affected.

For one thing, shelf space has been significantly reduced, and there are fewer study areas – sacrificed to accommodate the building of conference rooms, which the library will be able to hire out as a means of generating income.

About 20 hours a week have been chopped from the time allowed for the public to request items from storage (where the vast majority of collections are held) – and there’s no service at all on Mondays.

Protestations from experienced staff appear to have been ignored and there have been suggestions that a system, whereby items will only be collected from storage at certain times of day, may be introduced.

The Council’s treatment of Birmingham’s history, heritage and archives has come in for much criticism in recent years with many still upset at the closure of the free Science Museum in Newhall Street and it’s replacement with ThinkTank, at Millennium Point, where an entrance fee is charged.

Many of the items once displayed at the Science Museum are now held in storage at a council depot in Duddeston.

Meanwhile, the city’s inability to provide a facility similar to the Museum of Liverpool Life on Merseyside, an idea long cherished by local historian Carl Chinn, has done little for its reputation in this field.

Some seasoned library users, already worried by a marked increase in the policy of stock disposal, also fear that the outsourcing of much library service management to the private sector Capita organisation, will further erode the 120-year old public service ethos, resulting in a facility designed to maximise income and minimise costs.

As an example, critics of the library’s management point to the removal, in 2006, of significant shelf and study space on the fifth floor Science and Technology department.

That was replaced by a health and advice centre called Health Exhange, for which funding streams, not available for the purchase of books and other publications, were accessed.

With Capita having recently been awarded a contract to oversee the proposed construction of a new Central Library alongside The Birmingham Rep in Centenary Square, such fears seem very real indeed.

(See also "Architect Offers Free Help To Save Library)

Do any other readers know anything about the changes at the Central Library?

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