T2 Reinventing Libraries.

’I’m going to the Pub’…..  OK… but how did the pub start life?  Is there a lesson for libraries, maybe?

[outside stately homes and palaces] ‘The first libraries in the UK were created in the early Middle Ages when the community paid for, stored, shared, read and discussed its most precious books: the Bible, agricultural systems and productivity handbooks and advice etc.  It did this in the ‘Public House’…. Why the ‘Public House’?  Because after the Norman Conquest 1066 –>  the population was desperately poor for generations [kept poor by the new system of taxes brought in by William the Conqueror’s hated Domesday Book].  A community had perhaps only just enough resources to light, heat, cook and meet in just one building – hence the ‘public’ house.  Hardly a surprise, then, that public houses became the first libraries in England.  There are still some ‘pubs’ today where you can see this – but they are vanishing fast.  [I used to go to the Crown Hotel in Blandford which had a bar and restaurant in a library with a ceiling 4m+ high and walled with books.  It still has vestiges of this.]   Pubs are re-inventing themselves fast, however.  The Kings Head in Bledington, for example, not only offers a bar, but a restaurant, bedrooms, entertainment and is the venue for the village Post Office a number of times a week: the pub is reinventing itself by completely rethinking its role vis à vis locals and visitors.  Redundant  red, British Telecomm phone boxes in the UK are fast becoming book exchanges, shoe-shine stands etc…   Is it possible that libraries might just have the courage to re-invent themselves – or are they too mired in their past glory?’

TO DO.  Write a provocative 2 x page of A4 ‘Thinkpiece’  [in English] for Library Directors and Managers to help them consider the possibility of changing (at least to some degree) the role and function of their libraries in order to assure their continued relevance to the readers and communities they serve in the digital age.  Produce a vision of the ‘Library of 2050’ and consider ways and means that library managers can perhaps find their way towards your vision.  Design and run a workshop for such managers in order to seize them of the imperative nature of change.  This is NOT to be a presentation: rather something that provokes, engages and involves them such that they leave the workshop convinced of the need to change and with ideas as to how this might be achieved.

PS. If you ever find yourself just south of Bristol airport in the UK – do make a point of going to the ‘Bookbarn’…. they have some 3,000,000 books displayed and on sale for 1£ each!!  They have comfy seats to lounge and read in,  a home-made food cafe and a pub next door…. is there a recipe here?  Culturally it works in the UK…. but in France?????