Haringey Council cuts all children's librarian positions - protest Wood Green 9th September

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Amit on September 3, 2017 at 22:07

Just to clarify, will there still be professional librarians responsible for the books in the childrens areas?

Permalink Reply by Kumari on September 4, 2017 at 10:24

I don't think so, but I've just copied this from a post someone put up on Facebook.  There is more info if you click on the word 'HOME' underneath the picture.

Permalink Reply by Ian Craine on September 8, 2017 at 15:13

This is robustly denied by Haringey who are perhaps more reliable as a source than "someone on Facebook"

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/our-commitment-haringey-s-libraries

Permalink Reply by Kumari on September 8, 2017 at 16:24

What they say on that post is that there will now only be dedicated Children's librarians at Hornsey, Wood Green and Marcus Garvey.  Aside from that, they are saying that children's librarians will now be expected to do additional admin work, so partly cutting that aspect of their jobs.  That is not quite the same as saying it is not happening at all.  To be honest, I don't know enough about it to be able to comment definitively, and I am just passing on what I have read, but I don't think the Council's spin on this is entirely a refutation of this. 

Permalink Reply by Ian Craine on September 8, 2017 at 20:34

Your heading is "Haringey Council cuts all children's librarian positions". I'm not here to defend Haringey but unless you're calling them outright liars that is just not true. Anything like.

In fact the only reason I responded was because shortly after reading your post I got the Haringey Borough newsletter and was all ready to send a stinging response based on it. I was on your side.

I don't want to make a big thing out of this but I don't see anything particularly wrong in just having children's librarians in the three main libraries. I can't imagine a big need say in the nice little one off St Ann's Road. And it probably isn't a full time job so why shouldn't they do other things as well. This is a non-story.

I don't much care for social media at the best of times- let's write posts on something a little more reliable than Facebook hearsay.

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on September 8, 2017 at 22:26

There's quite a bit of misleading info on the site you link to. For instance it says that the Haringey Children's Book award this year suffered because it wasn't coordinated by Haringey Children's library service. I never has been. For the last three years it's been coordinated by the librarian at Heartlands School.