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Library Jigsaw Picture Slowly Emerging
November 14, 2011 1:40 PM
With an air of mystery surrounding the future of libraries in Lambeth worthy of the best Who Done It to be found on the shelves, various interested parties are currently reduced to picking up the few sparse clues left by Labour and analysing them like a fictional detective.
Some keen amateur sleuths noticed, for instance, that official Council images of the future new library in Clapham revealed a very bare and modernist interior making some ponder whether this new Council 'facility' might prove somewhat lacking in the crucial book department.
Others wondered whether the distinct lack of shelves might actually indicate that this flagship cooperative venture with a property developer could easily end up as a shared space for other services.
More clues along these lines emerge from the Council Leader, Steve Reed, in reply to a question put down for Full Council on Wednesday 9th November 2011 about the Co-operative Council. He replies under the heading ' Community Hubs ' the following: " The Chair of the Libraries Commission has already shared the intention of commissioners to promote the idea of libraries as community hubs to help build the capacity of different communities to participate in cooperative models of service delivery, and provide cooperation within communities."
One other emerging theme is that the Council, having run down existing library buildings to the point of dereliction, now sees little point in spending money on them. West Norwood library has closed on several occasions in the past couple of years due to serious water leaks. Perhaps the new Norwood Hall Community Facility is envisaged as an eventual destination for a few token books instead?
In Streatham, whisper it quietly, another joint Primary Care Trust development with the Council in Gracefield Gardens located behind the Odeon might provide adequate space in modern cheap-to-run surroundings for a nascent 'Community Hub' with a few books attached? Especially attractive for Labour, perhaps, if no professional librarians are involved - for we have noticed that Reed's Creed only gave them a reprieve up to April 2012.
The Library Commission is finally due to report its findings later this month. The interim report, let it be noted, came up with lots of really good ideas aimed at improving the service but very few that offered the degree of savings that Labour's Cabinet had demanded.
Our worry is that this whole process is just a smokescreen, just a tick box exercise in consultation, and that the conclusions of this report will be discounted heavily like a third rate novel very soon after publication.
If that is the case, then Labour's aspirations for libraries in Lambeth may well turn out to be a very thin volume indeed.