Where Have All the Book Boys Gone? (AntiClockWise 18)

[This piece was written in 1991 before the widespread availability of the internet. While not that much has changed for public libraries, the almost ubiquitous internet access, globalisation of information, freedom of information laws and many other technological advances render this article as a rather quaint historic document, in which spirit it is reproduced here! I hope to revisit the issue of libraries and information access in the future]

The right of access to information is a basic human right. Knowledge is indeed power and a powerful weapon in the information war. But this right is under severe threat due to the cash crisis in the public library service. Information technology is making huge advances, but at a grass roots level public libraries are having their opening times slashed and their book budgets dramatically cut.

The cutbacks are an assault on the right of the proletariat to get information and generally hang out in information centres. IT has allowed enormous amounts of data to be readily available on databases, but it is incredibly difficult for ordinary people to get their hands on them. It has always been hard for anyone to get hold of government information because of the diversity of sources i.e. each government  produces their own specialised data autonomously.

Databases can provide all this data via mind-boggling technical wizardry – but they can never offer a substitute for books. Of course, books are just more commodities, but they differ in that they can provide a useful function as a source of human knowledge.

A conspiracy theorist may suggest that slashed book budgets are because of the threat from books broadening the minds of the proles. Most public libraries were set up by Victorian philanthropists to ease their consciences and educate the riff raff … maybe their harmless gift has the potential to turn into an uncontrollable monster.

The anti-intellectual posturing of (often university educated) anarchists are counter revolutionary when the real need is for everyone to get educated to combat the ruling elite on their own level to reveal their real inadequacies.

You can pick up any book and make up your own mind about it, not like telecommunications where glitzy pre-packaged passive information is moulded by those who control it. It takes the huge apparatus of religion to interpret the Bible for their own ends – anyone not brainwashed who reads the Bible can see it as appalling texts and fascistic philosophy.

No book should ever be banned. People on the right or left who want books banned are crypto fascists. This may seem harsh, but there can be no wavering about censorship. Once you start banning books then totalitarianism, authoritarianism and oppression are initiated. If you start banning books for ‘political correctness’ or ‘morality’, then where does it end? Everyone has a different book they would want to ban. If a book is rubbish, just ignore it.

Books are subversive; they contain a kaleidoscope of ideas that no other media can provide I’ve spoken to a lot of people where I work (I’m a librarian) and they all say they would rather be reading books for pleasure than working (some people manage to combine the two!) but they feel obliged to spend time working and the TV is a much easier and more hypnotic pastime. People are often too tired to read after work.

Added to the cash crisis in public libraries, there is also the issue of books being stolen. Where on earth does robbing from libraries get us? Library book theft is exactly the same as the poor robbing from the poor – it deprives those who most need it. Yet no-one seems to seriously consider library theft as criminal but all it achieves is that someone who could really do with that book is left educationally stranded. Most people will have been to a library and found that the book they were looking for is missing.

Perhaps this is symptomatic of a selfish society. A June 1991 article on book theft in the Library Association Record found “The loss rate is almost certainly between 1 and 10% for most libraries. Some libraries without protection systems can reach 30% or 40%. One library … claims to have lost 110% one year – everything it bought that year was stolen; they bought further books and they were stolen”. About £100 million worth of books are stolen every year. This, coupled with budget cuts by incompetent councils, presents a horrific scenario for the library service. It is little wonder that some libraries are considering charging for some of their traditionally free services. I know I am starting to sound moralistic, but the situation is rapidly deteriorating to crisis point.

A remarkably perceptive letter to The Independent on Sunday on 7^th July 1991 from Patricia Coleman, Director of Birmingham Central Library, declared “Reading is no longer something to which all aspire; people boast of having no time to read books. I think society gets the librarians and libraries it deserves”. Quite right, so we have to demolish serious culture that revolves around High Art and mass media, society’s oppressive values, and the whole dehumanising work ethic. (Image by Clifford Harper)

Perhaps publishers could be encouraged to deposit, say 100 copies of every book title they produce with main libraries throughout the country (maybe staggered for small press publishers, though they may wish to donate more in return for other support). Publishers already deposit 6 copies to national libraries. But the problem is a barbarian, materialist society that is rapidly going nowhere. Libraries do reflect the society they are part of and their demise is a subtle act of war on the proletariat.