Advance notice of week long closure of Stroud Green and Harringay Library to install new flooring

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Permalink Reply by Liz on October 1, 2015 at 15:17

I think you can probably find times in the day when there are not parent/toddler activities. If you ask at the desk they will tell you when they are so you can avoid them. 

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on November 17, 2015 at 13:25

Libraries need to branch out so they're no longer just places for "reading, studying, browsing" etc. They have come under the same pressure from the Internet as local businesses. Many of us do our reading and browsing online which is putting pressure on libraries.

I think you should accept that sometimes it's not a traditional library as long as it's still there. The Stroud Green & Harringay library would make lovely flats...

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Permalink Reply by Liz on November 17, 2015 at 13:28

Well, I am merely a user of the library and one whose children are long past a 30 minute rhyme time session. They do however use it to borrow books, to get information for homework and to browse. I also use it to read and borrow books on topics on which I doubt I would buy books. I found it invaluable for my Open University degree as they got expensive and hard to come by books out of reserved stock and even bought a book for the library based on my enquiry. I have often sat and read in there and can honestly say that the presence of young children reading books, playing around books and singing has had no detrimental effect on me. However, it is a small library and if a session proves popular then I suppose there are times when this could impinge on serious study. However, a glance at the schedule suggests that most days this is about 30 mins to an hour in the library day.

As to funding, I can't answer that as I'm not connected to the council. I know that the lady who does storytime is a volunteer and often sits with children after the session, helping them to read. I think libraries have a fundamental role in engendering a love of reading in the young and giving them wide access to a variety of books. They can also be safe spaces for older children who wish to study and read away from distraction. This is part of a library's function.

Ultimately, libraries must have footfall or councils start to look upon them as under-used assets and start 'developing' them. Libraries are constantly under threat and librarians must find a way to bring in people. Events do this. If you are outraged by a few drop in toddler groups, I'm sure you are not going to enjoy the changes in the pipeline to turn them into customer service centres. Look at what is happening to Marcus Garvey if you want to see the future.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on November 17, 2015 at 16:10

Patricia, when I first worked in libraries in 1979 they were exactly as you described, solely for reading, studying and borrowing. As a consequence the one I last worked in, a small branch library, was whithin in a whisker of being closed as it was next to empty a lot of the time. I visited the same library a few years back and it had a packed week with reading groups, parent and toddler groups, an older people's reminiscence group and a homework club. One of the staff told me the numbers they got through the door in a day and we were lucky if we got that in a week back in '79. The role of libraries has changed over the years and, sadly or rightly depending on your view, they have to earn their keep in the face of all the other demands placed on local government funding.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on November 18, 2015 at 7:58

Afraid I don't know about the funding for these activities Patricia.

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