Libraryshops

Books Sorry I haven't been around speaking the real speech for a few days but as usual the dissertation has me in a spin -- every time I think I have it pinned down I'll read something or have an idea and I'll be sideswiped. But while I'm here...

I was absent mindedly reading a newspaper last week during a coffee break -- I'm sorry I can't remember which one (which sort of demonstrates what the words absent and minded mean) and I found an article which was talking about the fall in library visitors and how the man in charge of was under the impression that the way to attract people back into libraries was to make them more digital -- create a network of digitised stock -- perhaps in collaboration with Google. I hurumphed and took a bite of chocolate muffin.

I began to wonder why there has been a drop in visitors to public libraries at a time when there's apparently an increase in reading expecially amongst children etc. This would mean that people are prefering to buy books rather than go to a library and borrow them for free. Some of this has to do with supermarket sales and online purchases. But there must still be people using bookshops.

So here's my point. Sure libraries should transform -- they should become bookshops were they ask you to bring the items back after three weeks. What I'm wondering is why some branch libraries don't adopt the model of have small intimate sites on the city centre high street with a format similar to Waterstones -- or in reality closer to a posh used bookstore -- were people can pop in whilst they're shopping or during their lunch break and borrow a few books. Ideally the stock would be arranged in a similar format to bookshops too with the fiction in an author a-z and subject headings were necessary. No internet access. No library catalogues (except with the staff behind the counter). And a decent coffee shop. And lovely pine flooring.

This would also obvious mean a change in how libraries are stocked -- as with bookshops there would be a central distribution area which would track when an item is borrowed and send another one out to fill the gap on the shelf -- not necessarily the same item -- and when they user brings an item back it would be returned to the main depot not to the shelf, to be redistributed where necessary.

This won't be for everyone -- but it does have the potential to attract the important age bracket that find the usual library system unappealing. It will never happen of course -- the replenishing stock model is pure madness and impractical, especially with the amount of staff that would need to be employed and because its not for profit the funding model would be equally impossible. The bookshops won't like essentially free versions of themselves on the highstreet and the rents are bound to be far higher than the library service at present can afford.

What I'm really suggesting I suppose is that the library service starts thinking out of the box and stops assuming that digitisation is the way to go.

People like reading books. They're portable and user friendly. They just want an easier way to access them.