Tag: public libraries
Carnegie libraries in Wales
Alfred Zimmern, the classicist and first professor of international politics in Aberystwyth (and the world) is now largely forgotten, except for one striking phrase he coined, ‘American Wales’. He was referring to the explosive industrialisation of south Wales in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, which produced an […]
John Ballinger
There’s something faintly ridiculous about the phrase ‘librarian as hero’. But just occasionally librarians come along who, if not exactly heroic, at least have the capacity to astonish their successors with the number and breadth of their achievements. John Ballinger (1860-1933) was one such example. Ballinger was the Librarian of the Cardiff Free Library1 and […]
A new Public Libraries Act for Wales
One of the saddest features of our age is the rapid decline of the public library. What was once a crucial and heavily used part of local public provision has become, with some exceptions, a starved, neglected and run-down service. According to the latest CIPFA statistics for the UK, spending on public libraries dropped again, […]
The beautiful librarians are dead: academic librarians and the crisis in public libraries
An adapted version of a talk given to Welsh academic librarians at the WHELF Gregynog Colloquium on 15 June 2015. The city of Kingston upon Hull is famous for its poets, among them Andrew Marvell in the seventeenth century, and Douglas Dunn and Philip Larkin in the twentieth. Hull’s best known contemporary poet is Sean […]
The value of being open
The adapted text of a response to the award of an honorary doctorate by the Open University in a graduation ceremony held in the Wales Millennium Centre on 12 June 2015. Annwyl gyfeillion, rhaid imi ddweud ar y cychwyn ei bod hi’n anrhydedd anhygoel imi dderbyn y radd hon heddiw. I mi mae’r Brifysgol Agored […]
Books and their readers defend Cardiff libraries
This afternoon hundreds of people from Cardiff and some from beyond came together outside the Central Library in The Hayes to protest against Cardiff Council’s decision to close six of its libraries and further diminish the Central Library. Many speakers, including writers like writers like Gwyneth Lewis, Jo Mazelis, Fran Rhydderch and Labi Siffre, emphasised […]
Cardiff Central Library: defend it or lose it!
1 What has been lost “It’s hard not to feel utterly despondent at the current plight of public libraries. Along with the NHS and the BBC, our libraries are some of the few truly remarkable British institutions left. So often absolutely ordinary in appearance, a good library should offer escape routes down the most extraordinary […]
Cardiff libraries: a Council dispossesses its people
Cardiff is a thriving place. Big new developments are announced almost monthly. Recent ones include the new BBC Cymru Wales building near the station, the electrification of the Valleys railway lines and the massive Embankment complex. But while the Council pours resources into stimulating and supporting commercial growth, it leaves some of its basic public […]
The Library of Birmingham
The city of Birmingham is famous for reinventing itself. No sooner are buildings thrown up than plans are hatched to raze them and start again. A good case is the central library. The ‘old’ library, an inverted concrete pyramid of stupendous brutality opened in 1974, has been abandoned in favour of a brand new block […]