Morning:
13°c
Libraries to allow snacks and chats
Benedict Moore-Bridger19.09.08
Libraries are dropping their "no talking" rule in an effort to attract younger users.
After more than 150 years of strict silence, patrons will also be allowed to bring food, watch football and use mobile phones. Public libraries will die out if they are not given a cultural makeover, it is claimed.
Society of Chief Librarians' president Tony Durcan said: "We don't want greasy fish and chips spilled over 15thcentury books. But nor do we want people coming somewhere where they can't eat, drink, or talk at all."
Camden council's libraries are being overhauled, and one in Whitechapel has changed its name to "ideas store".
In Hillingdon, borrowing at one library rose 32 per cent with the arrival of a Starbucks café. The chain is now coming to the borough's 17 libraries.
Councillor Henry Higgins said: "Why would anyone want to borrow a book from somewhere dusty and antiquated? So we changed things."
Reader views (1)
Libraries should be places for people who want to read and study. That means quiet. We have other places for people to chatter and eat, they are called coffee-bars and pubs and cafes. (Any people who want to read or study in a noisy place are free to borrow the library's books and take them there! )
During term-time, my local library frequently has every seat taken by school-age students working for their exams. They don't like noisy distraction any more than the older generation does. I therefore believe that the reason behind this mad idea is to fill libraries with illiterate thugs and drive away the intelligent and studious, so that firstly they can stop spending money on books that their "customers" don't read, and then close the libraries down altogether once it becomes apparent that the only people left using the "library" are undesirables.
New labour. Tough on education, tough on the sources of education.
- Nigel, London
