Your library book is counting down...10, 9, 8

 Amazon have found a way of getting ebooks into libraries. Apparently they have developed a library version that can be checked out like any other book, downloaded and read through the Kindle or any of Amazon's free Kindle apps. Then - and this is the clever part - the book will auto-delete on the due date unless it has been renewed.
Suddenly have a vision of the credits to the old Mission Impossible TV series when the tape self destructed after the message was delivered. It would be nice of if library ebooks could be as dramatic....

MAD ABOUT LIBRARIES

369 libraries plus 29 mobiles are currently under threat of closure or have recently been closed. 
Even where libraries are unlikely to actually close their doors permanently, hours and staff are being reduced. I was particularly incensed to read in Public Libraries News that West Sussex has saved money by demoting some members of staff from the grade of librarian  to the level of library assistant. That's just dishonest. If you cut a staff member's hours then at least he or she can look for another part time job to fill the gap, or, if that's unrealistic, can go home and read a book. 
But forcing someone to work the same hours for less money makes the cuts  'invisible' and adds a very unfair layer of blame and judgment - "you're not good enough"- to a decision which has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with budgets... 

Every corner of the UK is affected in some way and if you click on the title of this post you can see a depressingly long list and a map of libraries in danger. 

But there are some reasons to be cheerful: the following authorities have announced no library closures

Brighton (my own local authority! Hurrah! which has a quite brilliant selection of libraries from the iconic Jubilee library in the centre to tiny branch libraries such as Portslade which uses imagination and insight to connect with the local community.)

Devon

Hillingdon - a North London borough

Lincolnshire

Moray

Poole

Staffordshire

Wirral

But it doesn't matter because Roy Clare, the head of the Museuems, Library and Archive Association apparently thinks people fighting to save libraries are invariably white middle class.  If he genuinely believes that then he can't have been in a library recently (or ever, come to think of it). They have always been warm refuges, full of good things like stories and music and newspapers and information and directories and posters and leaflets and seats you can sit in without someone asking you to buy something. And we need them.

Banned Books in America and the Quiet Librarian

Following on from my posts about the UK library celebration of books that have fallen foul of the censors - from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird to The Wizard of Oz - I have just discovered that this week is the 28th Banned Book Week in the US. It began when Reagan was in the White House and Thatcher was at Number 10 - and it is as well to remember the mindset of those days. It was the time of the Falklands War, the women peace protests at Greenham Common in Britain, and the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment Bill in America. That's the backdrop to the stand taken by Judith Kruger and others, and I imagine Judith as being the kind of librarian who walked and talked softly and remembered the books you took out. She wasn't just campaigning for the books she loved and believed with a passion should be read, but also the ones she hated such as Hitler's Mein Kampf and The Blue Book of the ultra right wing John Birch Society.*

She said in interviews that her own unshakable belief in the right of people to make up their own mind stemmed from the sensible way she was brought and remembered being discovered under the bedclothes, aged twelve, with a sex education book. Her mother told her not to be so silly and switch on the light, otherwise she might strain her eyes reading....

The New York Times have a useful 10-ways-to-celebrate guide on its website - go there by clicking on the title of this post. 

* Apparently, The Blue Book is a transcript of a two-day monologue by Robert Welch at the founding meeting of the society in 1958. TWO DAYS!That says an awful lot about Mr W doesn't it...?

The new Irish children's laureate and my own Treasure Island

This week award-winning Irish author and publisher Siobhán Parkinson was named Laureate na nÓg, Ireland's first laureate for children's literature. She is the author of more than 20 books aimed at children and teenagers. She is also publisher of a new children's imprint, Little Island, which I mentioned in this blog back in March because it was actively seeking new (Ireland based) writers.  Siobhan says that one of her main aims as laureate would be to ensure that 

every child in the country has access to a nice, bright, warm, cheerful, comfortable library, where they can go and find the books that will open their minds and bring them into wonderful imaginary places.

Amen to that.

I learned to read in that kind of library. It was a wonderful place called Treasure Island. It was part of  a small block of council flats in Islington, North London around the corner from the present day offices of The Guardian newspaper. I can still remember the chief librarian Miss Jessica Waller with her pearl perm and Miss Marple tweed skirts. She never allowed a child to take out a book that was too easy ..it was always about stretching your abilities, discovering new stories and going on new adventures. I met Mary Poppins there and knights in Ronald Welch's books and turf cutters in Patricia Lynch's...
I got to know the ballerinas in Noel Stratfield's novels and didn't like them much because I had no desire to stand on my toes (she came to Treasure Island once and I never thought it odd that this elderly woman should have a man's name...). 

Every child should have a Treasure Island

The most borrowed authors

Here's the top ten most borrowed library authors over the last decade....Dan Brown -- of Da Vinci Code fame - came in at 351st place in the library lending league. (That man owes me two hours of my time...) 

1. Jacqueline Wilson (16 million)

2. Danielle Steel (14 million)

3. Catherine Cookson (14 million)

4. Josephine Cox (13 million)

5. James Patterson (11 million)

6. RL Stine (10 million)

7. Mick Inkpen (10 million)

8. Janet & Allan Ahlberg (9 million)

9. Roald Dahl (8 million)

10. Agatha Christie (8 million)

The Magic of Libraries

February is the month that Public Lending Rights are paid and this is the first year I will be getting a cheque.  Although I already know how much it is - they email a month earlier with the total - it is still pretty exciting. The rate per loan is 6.29 pence and the minimum payment amount is £1 and the maximum £6,600 (the top figure is capped because otherwise all the money in the fund would go to the top ten authors and the rest of us -- especially newbies like me - wouldn't get a look in).  
It's a thrill to see my novel in bookshops, of course it is.  But there is something special about knowing A Good Confession is on library shelves up and down the country.  There are copies in Ballymoney, Ballymena, Magherafelt and other libraries in Northern Irealnd, it is in Tatto Heath in St Helens and Ince in Wigan. There are five copies in Cornwall and someone right now has borrowed the audio version in Deal and Tunbridge Wells and in  the Orkney Islands library. Just before Christmas I was told by a student that the hardback edition had been stolen from Hornsey library in North London. Just couldn't bear to give it back....