The most recent issue of History Workshop Journal published a feature on ‘Coalition Cuts’, including a piece on threats to archives and their repositories. This urged academics, in particular, to champion libraries and archives within their own institutions.
‘The Nation’, a New York based weekly and website, posted an article towards the end of last year (‘Upheaval at the New York Public Library’) which takes a detailed look at threats to U.S. library provision, especially in New York.
It raises all the questions we should be asking here: how many closures in the name of financial necessity are more than offset by grandiose and extravagant new building schemes? how can we counter a ‘cultural’ trend that condemns silent and sustained individual study as elitist and out of date?
None of us rejects the creative value of conversation and collaboration – so the implied (and often stated) contradiction between undergraduate study and further research has to be challenged – as must the supposed competition for resources of electronic and traditional media. Just about everything happening in New York is happening at a library near you.
As a first step, remember: it’s ‘use it or lose it’.
Here’s an article on the C $7 million cuts that Toronto’s Public Library is facing – and how they are fighting back:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/14/library-aims-to-attract-the-hip-bookish-under-40-set/