This isn’t an attempt to record the whole discussion, only those parts referring to libraries. And I shall paraphrase like anything.
By way of background, Norman Lebrecht (NL) introduced the discussion by saying that the aim was to discuss how soi-disant anti-elitism was damaging universities, libraries and the arts. He though it was chiefly an Anglo-American problem; the French, Germans or Russians had no such movement.
He introduced the panel, Michael Bogdanov (MB), the theatre director, John Eatwell (JE), President of Queens’ Cambridge, chairman of the British Library Board and board member of the Royal Opera House, Deborah Jacobs (DJ), City Librarian of Seattle (blessed with both a superb Rem Koolhaas building and a Libraries for All programme), Frank Furedi (FF), sociologist from Kent University (in my time there the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, but that was a long time ago), the philosopher A. C. Grayling (ACG) and the theatre director and newly appointed Director of the South Bank Jude Kelly (JK). I use initials hereafter to identify the contributors.
The discussion started with NL asking the panel where they thought anti-elitism came from, but FF quickly brought libraries in, describing it as “grotesque” that libraries’ mission statements say very little about books, but are “inclusive” because they provide computers, DVDs and warmth and shelter for the homeless, rather than Ideas, books, learning and education. Libraries are being used as a form of philistine social engineering, to build communities. We need to learn to value and defend the superior.
NL brought the discussion round to libraries or as he called it, the burning of the books. He started with MB, whose father had for over twenty years been the Chief Librarian of Whitechapel Public library, now closed and renamed an Ideas Store by Tower Hamlets council it was the centre of intellectual life in the West End, where one could see men like Bronowski or Isaac Rosenberg. MB as a child would go there at the height of blitz, and remembered a packed reading room, filled with people desperate to discover what was going on in the world, and discussion groups meeting everywhere. He also reminded us of the traditions of the miners’ institutes’ libraries in South Wales, which nurtured the orators and politicians of the labour movement. He could see no reason whatsoever to abandon the word library. But the tradition represented by Whitechapel had now collapsed, he maintained; there being fewer and fewer books, less and less choice, libraries having become like the monopolistic high street bookshops that supply a narrow range of reading material for nation.
NL asked DJ if Seattle had replaced the book with the binary digit, pressure to downgrade? She said funding was great in Seattle. Seattle had no sense that the book is unimportant it gives nobility to the library. It would be absurd to take the word library away and call it an ideas store. But she pointed out that in these discussions people often referred to their memories of libraries of long ago, rather than their present-day active use and asked how many of the panel had current library cards and used them. If people don’t use libraries, then they can’t demand stock or influence public officials at elections. In Seattle intellectuals do use them She described how she had encountered a senior member of Amazon.com’s staff recently, reading a new book, which he had, not from his own store, but from the Seattle Public library. She also Britain leads the world with the highest aspiration standards for public libraries, yet very few meet those standards, and book stock is one of the areas where they fail. We should all insist they’re met. She said she was in awe of the British standards and wished they had them in the US.
In answer to DJ’s question about library cards, the panel replied as follows:
JE: no public library cards he uses Cambridge University Library and the British Library
JK: yes
ACG: had four library tickets (sound man…for the record I have two public library tickets, two university libraries, one special library and a British Library pass)
MB: no (family)
FF: yes, Faversham public library.
NL: no but his family do
Olwen Fisher (OF) who read out the e-mails listeners sent in: yes
The debate then went off in search of a definition of elitism. NL said term of abuse elitism was a meaningless construct given by politicians
ACG said that there were different types of elites: social elites, which are unjustifiable, but others that are reasonable. He thought that if the motivation for changing the name library to fun palace, was to get people to visit, then it might be justified, though the problem would remain if it brought people in for the wrong reasons. The area where he lived was once served by three public libraries within five minutes walk, but now only had one and ACG had been involved in campaigns to keep the branches open. Yet he had come to believe that while the public library movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries was an autodidact movement, now there are many sources of information, so libraries have to concern themselves with things other than books. It is quite right that libraries should have computers, and the librarians themselves would make the casual user conscious that there are books available.
DJ, asked by NL if in the “highest tech library in world” the book was still central, replied that it certainly was. Rem Koolhaas had designed in for the book, they have thirty miles of shelving, and books on every floor. Wherever people go, they can see books. She was slightly and reasonably non-plussed by a question from NL about whether they still used library cards but answered that they did. She thought out that many people had romantic memories of library cards. She felt that those who used Whitechapel in the 1940s, chiefly Jews, had come from form intellectual backgrounds and countries with traditions of libraries and learning, whereas the immigrants in Tower Hamlets nowadays might have no concept of libraries, hence the labelling as Ideas Stores. But Ideas Stores still have books and smell and feel like libraries. FF contested this; he said you could see videos, DVDs and posters, but very few books; he felt the book was being fundamentally devalued.
JE pointed out that there was more published in Britain today than ever. The British Library acquires 13 km of published material every year and also collects digital material. But FF said that public libraries don’t reflect this and cited talking to difficulties of musicians obtaining sheet music or children looking for books to support project work, who would be told to search to Goggle. Libraries were becoming something very different.
NL tried to take the discussion off in the direction of university admissions policies, but after some discussion of how JK had brought new audiences into Yorkshire playhouse, she returned to the library theme, mentioning the new Bibilotheca Alexandria and how the book is a piece of beauty and a receptacle of ideas; books and libraries need champions. More and more people understand that taking the arts forward is a calling or vocation, like being an artist, and we need to think on many levels and do things to the highest standards
Asked how, with a most exciting building Seattle managed to maintain intellectual integrity and popular appeal, DJ replied that they focus on books and future: they hold best of the past, while reaching for the future. They are heavily used, with 8-12,000 visitors a day and 18,000 a day at holidays. There’s been a 60% increase in issues of materials. Asked how they had found the money, she said they had engaged public and talked about the need, achieving a 70% vote in favour. They had champions. She urged us to do something, to make libraries part of local elections, to become political animals, to ask candidates for office how will you support the library, will you make them a priority, will you add to the book budget? When Seattle faced cuts of $5 million, the library got a budget increase.
FF said we do spend a lot of money but on the wrong things for example the swathe of new museums which were merely interactive areas, indulging people with button pushing.
If there were a referendum would we get public support? FF was a little bit optimistic. If we tell people of the potential, they might use them. JE felt there might be some cause for optimism, if there was public support to enhance system. Asked if the spirit of Seattle could be felt at the BL, JE said it had transformed itself under an inspirational chief executive, Lynne Brindley with an outward looking approach both at St Pancras and on the web.
MB’s, asked what his father would have wanted, replied he would have wanted to make books much more available in schools, to encourage reading and give it priority over television and Internet. Though English was his father’s second language, he was a man of great grammatical precision and a huge vocabulary. NL concluded by saying this was the great Kulturkampf of the English-speaking world and that the uninformed were winning the argument.
