In bad books

A recent report says that the number of visits to libraries around the country has dropped by 2.6% million in the past year alone, with the number of people borrowing books down by 3.3%.
At the same time the number of people using the internet to renew books or check catalogues rose by 20 per cent.
Oddly enough, the fact that fewer people are using their library, and those who do can't be bothered to go there in person has been interpreted as good news.
And the figures also show that public library spending on books dropped again in the 12 months to March 2008, following earlier drops of 0.7% and 1.6% in 2007 and 2006. Book stock held by libraries also fell.
The Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA) took a positive line on the statistics, saying that the rise in online use was "evidence that the library service is . . . becoming more relevant, adapting to the changing needs of its users and meeting the challenge to supply information in the most suitable way".
We use the library in Boston a lot ... or rather, we used to.
The fact is that some of the books on the shelves more closely resemble the Dead Sea scrolls than works of literature. Some of them have been on the same shelves - and often in more or less the same place - for years.
Boston Library has always seemed generally poor for the size of the town it serves.
The arrival of new books, which used to be something to look forward to at least once a year (the famous spending spree that preceded the end of the financial year) is something now seldom celebrated.
In common with other libraries, an increasing amount of space is being devoted to computers for internet use, or for the hire of CDs and DVDs.
The latter is a task we feel should be left to hire shops, not local libraries, as they offer no "added value" and are purely commercial.
Aside from that the overall volume of books at Boston is small, and largely out of date. The only recent addition that we can make out is a display unit that is three times the size of the old one yet holds only a fraction of the books.
And the information leaflets about other events around the county arrive almost as an afterthought.
We have lost count of the number of times we've picked up a brochure only to find that whatever it refers to is over ... or almost over.
It's as if the leaflets are sent elsewhere and eventually to Boston by way of an afterthought.
Lincolnshire county Council lets Boston down when it comes to our library service.
It needs a spring clean, more new books, and less by way of computers, CDs and DVDs.

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