Martinruenz.de: The Dark Side of Big Data

By Martin Runz

February 14, 2016

Everybody (1, 2, 3) is talking about big data and the chances that are not to be missed. So it would be fatal to miss this opportunity, for instance, by imposing too many regulations, right?

First things first, what is big data about?

Control. While data analysts looked into a murky pond waiting to observe a fish every now and then, big data promises clear water and a thorough understanding of ongoing processes – what are all the fish doing? At its heart, the term doesn’t describe anything more than making the most of as much data as possible. Even though it is natural that one wishes to have as much knowledge as possible, one should keep in mind that information always brings the danger of being exploited. Obviously, burglars are not supposed to know when families are on holidays. But likewise, a government should not keep track of who is voting against them. The more data you collect on processes, the better you can control them. And as the amount of data that modern societies produce keeps growing significantly, the threat of misuse of this data grows in accordance.

What kind of digital data do we produce?

Only a few years ago most of us didn’t produce any digital data at all. These days, we generate data actively as well as passively. When we search online, shop online, book trips online, communicate online (which includes uploading images and videos), organise contacts and calendars online, then we upload our data actively – some people generously upload all of their personal data. In addition, a lot of web pages use tools that analyse our browsing behaviour, mobile apps create usage statistics or sometimes even spy on personal data, and most disconcerting: Our friends and colleagues share information about us – commonly without thinking about it by uploading all their contacts (often automatically, including profile pictures) and mentioning us in chatrooms or by sharing pictures of us. This happens passively, as we don’t share the data willingly.

By accumulating passive data only, it would be possible to obtain an accurate picture of most persons, composed of interests, social contacts and images. Regarding active data as well, digital fingerprints become alarmingly complete. Let’s say you want to go on a sight-seeing trip. Already during planning you produce data like: When are you going where, with which budget, how long did you look at which websites and as a result, what are you interested in? Which of your probably best friends did you ask to join you, are these friends actually joining you? If not, did they make up an excuse or are they prevented for any reason? And then, when you are actually travelling you are tracked non-stop, your automatic uploads reveal what you are looking at and with whom you are meeting.

Most of this information is available straight away, but from a big data perspective much more is deducible: Based on how you describe the trip in chat records, do you like it? Are you going to break up your relationship? Does your activity correlate with someone you know? Is there a chance you are having an affair, are you susceptible to blackmailing? …

If you are lucky, you want to go to Paris and some service provider tries to make as much money out of you as possible. If you are unlucky, you want to see Tibet and a whole government might be working against you.

I would like to finish this section by quoting a friend of mine:

"Not having a [company name] account does not mean that they have no information about you. It’s more like you don’t have a password to access your data."

How could such data be exploited?

Some experts claim that there is no bad data, but only bad uses of data. This logic is tempting, but then you could also say there are no bad weapons but only bad persons. Admittedly, there are countries relying on this logic but the consequences are well-known. I guess that most people would feel better knowing that this embarrassing picture taken at last New Year’s Eve party wouldn’t exist instead of hoping that nobody is going to prey on it.

For now, assume that all your digital data is accessible by a single instance, say your government. In this case you provide your government with incredible control over yourself and also your relatives. A mere measurement of how defiant you are could be dangerous for you, depending on where you live. Furthermore, someone gazing at your data is not required to remain inactive. One might try to manipulate your opinion by placing solely the content on (social) media platforms that you are supposed to see.

Let’s try another thought experiment – surveillance of education. I believe that a biased education system is especially dangerous, as it allows to manipulate the awareness of people which in turn allows to advocate radical beliefs. Edsger W. Dijkstra once said:

"It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs."

The more data-driven and controlled life becomes, the more self-censorship will emerge, ultimately affecting research. Imagine you are forced to wear a GPS fitness tracking device and your employer, say the O.R.-well University, has access to your data. Such a state of affairs would immediately affect the behaviour of students, which has to be as expected. Quick learners, for instance, that skipped a lecture every now and then might be punished for absence, as well as students that leave their dorm after a certain time or persons that show non-heterosexual patterns might be penalized. This scenario is ridiculously far-fetched? Well, apparently we are there already.

The good news is that there is no single instance that has immediate access to all the data we produce. Some popular corporations that collect lots of personal data are: Google / Alphabet, Facebook, VK, Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox, Apple and WeChat. There are also companies – called data brokers – behind the scenes, being just as interested in your data.

The bad news is that data monopolies get bigger and bigger, buying as many competitors as possible. And worse, governments are very successful at spying on these corporations both legally and illegally. It is somehow paradoxical that our lives become increasingly global, but that at the same time our digital trails are more and more centralised. Clearly, a more decentralised distribution of data would be more robust against exploitation.

But we can trust our governments, why would they want to exploit our data?

Regarding history, I am afraid that there is no reason at all to trust any government. Seemingly stable states can acquire fascistic characteristics surprisingly fast, but potentially dangerous data will not simply disappear. I am not aware of any region of the earth with a history free of human rights violations. Minority groups were and still are suppressed in many places. A very common example pro data privacy is the creation of the so called ‘pink lists’ in Germany. In the 19th century, prior to Nazi-Germany, lists of homosexuals were maintained without the intention to suppress homosexuals. When the Nazis obtained those files years later, they were used to systematically kill the listed individuals. Sure, this is an extreme case, but the possibilities with big data are also much more serious. And it is the pattern that worries me: Supposedly harmless data becoming very dangerous later.

Having large-scale in-depth data on a society could be used for subtle and effective propaganda, not to mention persecution. I doubt that another French Revolution would be possible as soon as there is a government exploiting big data. For more inspiration on this matter you might want to read George Orwell’s “1984” or Dave Eggers’ “The Circle”.

Anything else?

It is not only governments that are in a rage for collecting data. Companies, especially these that are data driven, such as insurance companies, sense new profits by acquiring new data. This isn’t necessarily bad and maybe more of a personal opinion, but I don’t like some of the implications. There is a trend towards usage-based insurances. For example, you get a cheaper car insurance when you drive safely and accept that your driving behaviour is fully tracked. The recorded data is very sensitive, which raises data privacy concerns and insurance companies don’t simply provide free discounts of course. In the end, customers that do not agree to the tracking will pay higher prices, which I think is discriminating. The same concept applies to sharing your fitness data with your health insurance, using fitness tracking devices. Ultimately, you adjust your behaviour in order to function as some instances expect you to, whilst being transparent – or you pay the price. There are also concerns regarding data misinterpretation, which is briefly covered on the second webpage linked in this section.

What will be possible in the future?

Currently, machine learning techniques are more popular than ever before and one breakthrough in research is followed by another one, which is great! Related methods are well suited to interpret big data and with increasing capabilities, potential threats also solidify. Very frequently, for instance, I see pictures of children posted on social media platforms or in non-encrypted chatrooms. As a result, children that grow up now probably have a perfect face recognition descriptor trained without ever touching a digital device themselves and without having had any choice. In theory, this could be used to identify billions of people in vast amounts of images uploaded in the future and also in video data like from surveillance cameras. Further, I think there is a danger of becoming slaves to our data. People love ratings. We are not only rating restaurants and hotels, but also doctors and teachers. Why not let big data do the job of rating for us? The more data, the more accurate the rating. But what if you grew up in the wrong neighbourhood, had criminal friends and have pictures showing you drunk? You might not get a job, as you are rated as potentially dangerous – this is related to the car insurance example above. In such a future, you would make every decision based on how nice your digital trail would look like. Freedom? I don’t think so. For those that have concerns about technological singularity, please include big data into your nightmares. A lot of bright minds are discussing the danger of machines becoming more intelligent than us and related threats. I believe this threat is amplified by big data. Moreover, with the emerging Internet of Things the amount of data we produce will increase sharply in the near future. This is gold for data-driven companies and big players are already buying themselves in, whilst security agencies are not unaware of upcoming ways to spy. Bruce Schneier just published an article sharing similar concerns, but focusing on the Internet of Things.

Aren’t these concerns rather theoretical?

I agree that most of my concerns relate to potential threats. Yet, the world is changing fast and I am pretty sure that due to the Internet of Things, robotics and AI it will look as different in 60 years as it did 60 years ago. There will be awesome new possibilities but we should not be ignorant to involved dangers. Instead, we should try to find secure solutions as soon as possible. If it were North Korea we are talking about, everybody would understand that big data might be a bad idea – it’s always the foreign that is dangerous. But regarding that resources are getting rare, climate is changing and that conflicts are out of control, it might take less than we think to get suspicious governments fueled by the fear of people.

What can we do?

Everybody can do do one’s bit, here are a few things I perceive as important:

Awareness: Start having discussions on this topic, raise your voice. Without awareness there is little chance of being represented by politicians. Or maybe you are even politically active yourself.

Education, education, education! I genuinely believe that many problems would not exist, if we had a more comprehensive education system. Douglas C. Engelbart once said something very true:

"The key thing about all the world’s big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively. If we don’t get collectively smarter, we’re doomed."

When only 5% are aware of big data and even fewer people understand the implications, we have a problem. Education is the fundament for both, a meaningful discussion and awareness.

Decentralization: I understand that offering a variety of services brings important effects of synergy and it is very difficult to find an appropriate amount of regulatisation. And, maybe most important from a user’s perspective: Having as much data as possible with a single provider makes things easy. Yet, distributing data over many service providers clearly increases protection from exploitation. Sometimes, paying little money for a service guarantees encryption and you switch from being a product to using a product.

Self-hosting: Even better than distributing your data would be to host as many services as possible by yourself or a person you trust. Perhaps, you know somebody with server administration expertise who can help you out, for instance, by setting up a family cloud.

Open-Source: Using open-source software, it is not you who is transparent but the software you use, which is a major advantage. Regarding the user agreements of some closed-source products, you can’t really know what’s happening with the data on your own devices. The code of popular open-source projects on the other hand is inspected by many independent people, resulting in trustworthiness. Have a look at prism-break, there might be open-source products suiting you well.

Security audits: For some, especially commercial products, there are comprehensible reasons for not publishing the source-code. In this case, the company should at least allow security audits to allow some level of transparency.

No backdoors! The discussion about forcing companies to implement backdoors in products reappears again and again. This is snakeoil. First, it leads to one instance – most likely some security agency, which is typically only superficially controlled by democratic institutions – having access to all your data. Second, backdoors themselves impose a security risk. How could you know that they are not used for industrial espionage or by hackers? Choose your products wisely. By preferring products of companies that care about data privacy you hit those that treat your data irresponsibly. Some vendors for instance, have a record of including backdoors, which should not be tolerated by customers.

Encryption: Last but not least, encrypt your data. It will be much harder to exploit your data, if it is encrypted; maybe even impossible. I can’t see any reason why you would choose an unencrypted messenger over an encrypted one. Modern ones are easy to use and when none of your friends has one, you could at least install both. I am sure someone will follow your example. You wouldn’t simply share your house key with strangers or allow them to listen to your phone calls – why allow them to read your digital communication?

Conclusion

This article covered my big data and data-privacy concerns at the same time. Synergy. There definitely are some potential threats and I hope that I could raise some awareness with this post. I am not trying to say that you should delete your account at any service provider, but you should know which data is generated, what can be deduced and how it could be used in the future.

I am by far not the only person concerned about data privacy. Robin Doherty wrote a nice article about the problems with the “I have nothing to hide” argument and Philip E. Agre elaborates more on pro privacy arguments. Also, John Oliver dedicates one episode of his famous Last Week Tonight show to Government Surveillance. Furthermore, Reporters Without Borders and The Guardian provide special pages covering digital surveillance.

Let’s bring this article to a close with the words of Edward Snowden:

"I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded."

Source: martinruenz.de

Knight Blog: Maker Kit Program Turns Libraries Into Places for Content Creation, Not Just Consumption

Above: Maker kits being delivered to Illinois State Library.

By Victoria Rakowski

February 8, 2016

Librarianship is a funny profession–the day is often a mixture of hokey jokes from people who haven’t been in a library in years, and strategizing ways to implement robotics and computer coding into programs for everybody from preschoolers to seniors. When people see what libraries actually get up to these days, they’re almost always surprised. So many people in America depend on their libraries to help them forward when it comes to technology, and lots of libraries have answered that call with aplomb, learning as they go.

Make it @ Your Library was founded in 2012 as part of an Institute for Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant, and our original intent was to help get all libraries up to speed on the concept of makerspaces in the library–or, rather, DIY culture and content creation in the library, versus content consumption. While libraries bring a great deal of technology to their communities, there was no denying the gap in access that exists all over our home state of Illinois: Many rural libraries just aren’t on the same financial playing field as suburban Chicago libraries. We originally began with the simple intention of helping libraries, no matter their budget and ability, bring makerspaces and DIY concepts into their communities. Our mission morphed a bit when we were awarded a Knight Prototype Fund grant in January 2015.

With Knight’s backing, Make it @ Your Library has created Maker Kits that are largely technology-based, and partnered with the Illinois State Library to circulate those kits throughout the state. The kits include everything from engineering toys to 3-D printers, and have been in constant circulation throughout Illinois since November 2015. While more detailed analysis is in the works, “the kits are very popular and fly out the door to another library as soon as they are returned,” according to Kathleen Bloomberg, associate director library operations. This project has been an amazing way to put technology into the hands of librarians who have less to work with, and enabled them to take those possibilities to their patrons through programming and open access.

The opening of a maker kit at Fondulac District Librar

Our big takeaway from this project has been that people will rise to the occasion when they have the tools they need to grow and learn. A perfect example of this comes from Fondulac District Library, one of the libraries that helped us test our 3-D printing kit. Long story short, they broke the 3-D printer, but didn’t give up, fixed the printer and learned a lot in the process. So much of the maker movement is about experimentation and tinkering and with the Maker Kits–breaking and making.

We’ve also learned to dream big when it comes to looking for organizations to partner with, to look not necessarily to the organizations that are most like us, but the ones who want the same things. During our first phase we partnered with Instructables, a website focusing on the DIY movement, and in this phase we’ve relied heavily on the Illinois State Library and their expertise in connecting Illinois libraries. Whatever the next phase of Make it @ Your Library brings, we know we can’t do it alone and that building partnerships is key.

The Knight News Challenge on Libraries opens for entries on Feb. 24. Winners will share in more than $3 million for ideas that answer the question, How might libraries serve 21st century information needs? Check out our schedule on online sessions where you can ask questions. Visit newschallenge.org to apply and give feedback on other ideas beginning Feb. 24.

Victoria Rakowski is a public librarian and co-founder of Make it @ Your Library.

Source: Knight Blog

Library Journal: Adversary or Ally? The trouble with fines and fees | Editorial

By Rebecca T. Miller

February 16, 2016

Last month the Park Ridge Public Library, IL, approved fees for those using the facility for business purposes. On its face, this decision runs counter to the burgeoning interest in libraries embracing a workforce that is increasingly outside the office by developing coworking spaces and gathering essential tools to enable them to succeed. On a deeper level, it runs counter to the ingenuity involved in continually removing barriers to access—even barriers constructed to keep the use of the library fair, such as overdue fines—and this I find much more problematic and worth contemplating.

This got me thinking about the trouble with fees and fines. While many hold that fines, for example, are an incentive to return materials, and fees help pay for stretch services—or, as the Park Ridge example illustrates, intentionally to limit a certain use of the library—one thing is true of both: enforcing them costs resources. People, front and back of the house, have to dedicate time to developing and implementing processes, expanding communications, and paying attention to policing. The return on investment (ROI) is worth examining before instituting a fee or fine since, as has been seen where fines for overdue materials have been removed, the cost of collection can be higher than the revenue gained or the loss offset.

That’s hard cost, which any library manager and board should have top of mind. Then there are the soft costs, such as how this choice affects the library’s relationship with its community, what it signals about the library’s mission, and if it undermines an effective alliance between the library and the people it serves. Is a precedent being set that threatens to kick off a trend in service—intentional or not? It’s important to bear in mind what such a decision says about the library and will keep saying every time a policy is enforced.

Consider access. When a fee or a fine is present, a level of access is at risk, if not inherently denied. Given the core principal defining the library as a place to be used freely, any policy that limits access should be questioned, or at least designed to be as forgiving and easy to work with as possible.

Consider what it signals about money. Fines and fees are articulated in a budget as revenue, meaning that this income is then dependent upon people misusing the library or, in the case of fees, using it for a limited purpose. It can be hard to give up a revenue line, even one that has poor ROI, if a board doesn’t see the overarching benefit of sacrificing it. Hence, precedent gets set—and set in stone.

There’s also an issue with reinforcing the perception that the library is providing competition to local business enterprises. In Park Ridge, creating a fee structure for business use of the library buys into some idea that the library is taking an opportunity away from the community as a whole, while the truth is just the opposite. One fee threatens to lead to another. For instance, should coding be taught at the library without a fee if others teach it for a fee? I certainly think so. It gets back to access.

Worse, however, fines and fees can confuse the reality that libraries are a shared resource with the misunderstanding that they are a place for free stuff. A fee begs the question: Why charge for one thing but not another? More important, as I have written in my editorial “Worth the Price,” libraries that focus on being about free stuff miss the point. We should be fostering a deeper understanding of the library as something we all invest in (and support financially through taxes) and care for as a community, commanding our ownership and engagement. The message that gets conveyed in a fine-free setting, for example, is that these books (to pick one format) are all of ours, and we’re here to look after them and share them together. This may seem naive, but in settings where fines have been exchanged for donation jars, the goodwill flows.

Ultimately, we must reflect upon our bond with the people libraries are designed to serve. Interactions with patrons can become about the fine or fee, instead of the need addressed by the service. This risks turning librarians and clerks into cops and collection agents and diverting backroom capacity to fee and fine maintenance. In the process, it can set up an adversarial relationship between the library and its users rather than forging an alliance that supports a vibrant interchange. I vote for the library as ally rather than as adversary.

[Note: Several relatively recent examples of libraries giving up overdue fines, and the reasoning behind the decisions, are covered in these local news stories from Albany’s Times Union, The Repository in Canton, OH, and boston.com. If you have recently analyzed overdue fines for your library and opted to give them up or keep them, please share your insights with us at LJ for possible future coverage. Thank you—Ed.]

From: Library Journal

CBC News: Vancouver Public Library reveals top 10 fiction books checked out in 2015

Vancouver Public Library reveals top 10 fiction books checked out in 2015

Breaking down checked-out books exposes city preferences and uncovers neighbourhood character

By Maryse Zeidler, CBC News Posted: Feb 17, 2016 4:00 PM PT Last Updated: Feb 17, 2016 4:00 PM PT

Vancouver Public Library's top 10 most checked-out books of 2015 reveal Vancouverites' penchant for mysteries and thrillers. (Vancouver Public Library)

The Vancouver Public Library's top 10 most checked-out fiction books of 2015 exposes the city's literary preferences.

Many of the novels in the top 10 list supplied to CBC News have garnered some serious accolades, whether it be the Pulitzer prize orCBC's annual Canada Reads competition.

Meanwhile, other books on the list reveal a definitive propensity for mysteries and thrillers.

Top 10 most checked-out fiction of 2015

1. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (2015) 
2. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, C. Alan Bradley (2015)
3. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (2012)
4. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson (2013)
5. Sandman, Lars Kepler (2014)
6. Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki (2013)
7. Bones Never Lie, Kathy Reichs​ (2014)
8. Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (2013)
9. Ru, Kim Thuy (2012)
10. Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan (2013) 

• View a full description of each novel, including awards and other telling details.

Hal Wake, artistic director of the Vancouver Writers' Festival, says writers and publishers have long been aware of the long-lasting effect prizes can have.

Hal Wake is the Artistic Director of the Vancouver International Writers' Festival. (Vancouver Writers Festival)

"It's why they despair when they're not on a list," he says. "It can give you a real leg up."

As for the dominance of mysteries and thrillers, Wake says the genre can be addictive.

"The advantage that mystery writers have is that they write series," he says. "People will discover one book, and then they're devoted and they can't wait for the next one."

The library's acting director of collections and technical services, Chris Middlemass, says not much on the top 10 list came as a surprise to her.

Library selectors choose books six to nine months before they're published, she says, and can easily spot what will be a popular title; they know to order multiple copies of books by authors like mystery writer Kathy Reichs.

Growth of sub-genres 

Chris Middlemass is the Vancouver Public Library's acting director of collections and technical services. (VPL)

 But, Middlemass says, the biggest change in book selection she's seen at the library comes beyond the top contenders, where there's been a growth of specific sub-genres.

"Readers are getting very focused," she says. "They have way better access to authors, through Twitter feeds and blogs and all that kind of thing, than they ever used to have."

Whereas readers may have once professed themselves as fans of broader genres like science fiction, Middlemass says they're now more likely to express their appreciation for more specific categories like gothic, steam punk, and alternate history.

Top 10 lists vary by library branch

The library also supplied CBC News with top 10 fiction check-outs by branch, revealing which neighbourhoods are still reading Dan Brown's Inferno or J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy.

Interactive map of the top 10 books by branch

As a former branch manager, Middlemass said head librarians know to cater to their communities.

"Each neighbourhood does have a different kind of mix," she says.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see more mystery readers on the West side. On the East side, from my recollection, there would be much more interest in the arts, performing arts, pop culture and out-there literary fiction."

However, she says, those differences have become less pronounced as readers are now able to order books from any branch.

From: CBC News

Vogue: Read Harper Lee’s Essay for Vogue, “Love—In Other Words”

Read Harper Lee’s Essay for Vogue, “Love—In Other Words”

FEBRUARY 19, 2016 4:46 PMby JULIA FELSENTHAL

In 1960, when Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird at age 34, it seemed the beginning of a brilliant career. Of course, that would turn out to be, for the vast majority of her life, her only book (until last year’s Go Set a Watchman). Her reputation was long ago cemented as a woman of few words, an author who stopped giving interviews back in the mid-’60s, and a person who chose to live a quiet life far from the world’s publishing centers.

Given all that, it’s easy to forget that in the wake of To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee was the sort of literary ingenue who placed essays in magazines like Vogue. In April of 1961, this magazine published “Love—In Other Words,” Lee’s meditation on the meaning of love, into which she deftly wove threads as disparate as the affection Prince Edward bore for his mistress, the gospel of St. Paul, and Cervantes’s zest for life.

“Every creation of man’s mind that has withstood the buffeting of time was born of love—love of something or someone,” she wrote. “It is possible even to love mathematics.”

Harper Lee died today at the age of 89, old enough, we hope, to see that her To Kill a Mockingbird, no doubt created from love, has stood the test of time.

Love—In Other Words

By Harper Lee

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here, for Vogue, is the first article ever written by Harper Lee, a shy young woman who has an engaging drawl, immense happy eyes, and, this year, the pleasure of having written an uncommon novel: To Kill a Mockingbird. Besides being good, Mockingbird is that literary rara avis, a first novel that sells. (In this country, it has sold more than half a million copies; abroad, it delighted the English and has been translated into German, French, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Italian. A pair of independent producers now has the movie rights.) Not unlike someone who might crop up in her own fiction, Nelle Harper Lee lives with her father and sister in a small Alabama town; they practice law, she writes. (A nonpracticing lawyer, she studied a year after law school as a Fulbright scholar at Oxford, then worked a stretch as a reservations clerk for BOAC.)

Many years ago an aging member of the House of Hanover, on learning that the duty of providing an heir to the throne of England had suddenly befallen him and his brothers, confided his alarm to his friend Thomas Creevey: “ . . . It is now seven-and-twenty years that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived together; we are of the same age and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties together, and you may well imagine the pang it will occasion me to part with her . . . . I protest I don’t know what is to become of her if a marriage is to be forced upon me . . . .”

Amused by the Duke of Kent’s predicament. Mr. Creevey recorded the incident in his diary and preserved for us a timeless declaration. The man who made it was not overly endowed with brilliance, nor had he led a noteworthy life, yet we remember his cry from the heart and tend to forget his ultimate service to mankind: He was the father of Queen Victoria.

What did the Duke of Kent tell us? That two people had shared their lives on a voluntary basis for nearly thirty years—in itself a remarkable achievement; that they had survived the fevers and frets of intimate relationship; that together they had met the pressures and disappointments of life; that he is in agony at the prospect of leaving her. In one graceful sentence, the Duke of Kent said all there is to say about the love of a man for a woman.

And in so saying, he tells us much about love itself. There is only one kind of love—love. But the different manifestations of love are uncountable:

At an unfamiliar night noise a mother will spring from bed, not to return until every corner of her domain is tucked safely round her anxiety. A man will look up from his golf game to watch a jet cut caterpillar tracks through the sky. A housewife, before driving to town, will give her neighbour a quick call to see if she wants anything from the store. These are manifestations of a power within us that must of necessity be called divine, for it is no invention of man.

What is love? Many things are like love—indeed, love is present in pity, compassion, romance, affection. What made the Duke of Kent’s statement a declaration of love, and what makes us perform without second thought small acts of love every day of our lives, is an element conspicuous by its absence. Were it present, the Duke of Kent would have left his mistress without a pang; the sound barrier breaking over her head would not rouse the mother; sinking his putt would be the primary aim of the golfer; the housewife would go straight to the store with no thought of her neighbour. One thing identifies love and isolates it from kindred emotions: Love admits not of self.

Few of us achieve compassion; to some of us romance is a word; in many of us the ability to feel affection has long since died; but all of us at one time or another—be it for an instant or for our lives—have departed from ourselves: We have loved something or someone. Love, then, is a paradox: To have it, we must give it. Love is not an intransitive thing—love is a direct action of mind and body. Without love, life is pointless and dangerous. Man is on his way to Venus, but he still hasn’t learned to live with his wife. Man has succeeded in increasing his life span, yet he exterminates his brothers six million at a whack. Man now has the power to destroy himself and his planet: Depend upon it, he will—should he cease to love.

The most common barriers to love are greed, envy, pride, and four other drives formerly known as sins. There is one more just as dangerous: boredom. The mind that can find little excitement in life is a dying one; the mind that can not find something in the world that attracts it is dead, and the body housing it might as well be dead, for what are the uses of the five senses to a mind that takes no pleasure in them?

Having at long last realized that he must love or destroy himself, man is proceeding along his usual course by trying to evolve a science for it. The ultimate aim of psychoanalysis, when its special brand of semantics is put to rout, is to release man from his neuroses and thus enable him to love, and man’s capacity to love is measured by his degree of freedom from the drives that turn inward upon him. As one holds down a cork to the bottom of a stream, so may love be imprisoned by self: Remove self, and love rises to the surface of man’s being.

With love, all things are possible.

Love restores. We have heard many tales of love’s power to heal, and we are skeptical of them, for we are human and therefore prone to deny the existence of things we do not understand and cannot explain. But this tale happened:

On an August evening in a tiny Southern hospital, an old man lay dying. His family had been summoned, among them his eldest grandson, a boy of sixteen. The boy’s relationship with his grandfather had been a curious, almost wordless one, as such things often are between man and man. All that day the boy said nothing. It seemed that he could not talk. He would not wait out the old man’s dying with the rest of his family in the hospital lobby; instead, the boy found a chair and stationed himself in the corridor beside his grandfather’s door, where he sat all day, oblivious to the starched scurryings of hospital routine. Late in the evening the family’s doctor found the boy still sitting, still silent. The doctor said, “Go home, son. There’s nothing you can do for your grandfather.” The boy took no notice of him, and the doctor went into the room only to emerge moments later, looking bewildered. “Er—son,” said the doctor. The boy looked up. “He’s asking for something to eat. He’s better.” Showing no sign of surprise, the boy nodded: “I reckoned it was about time he was hungry,” he said, his first utterance of the day. Then he picked up the chair, put it back where he found it, and walked down the corridor, stretching his lanky frame and yawning. “Where are you going, boy?” called the doctor. “To get him a hamburger,” answered the boy. “He likes hamburgers.”

There is no satisfactory explanation for extrasensory perception—it simply is. There was no rational explanation for the old man’s recovery—it simply happened. One may only wonder.

Love transforms. Why is it that the quotation we are seeking, when we can’t find it in the Bible or in Shakespeare, most often turns up in Don Quixote? Because Cervantes, from sheer love of life, made the nuances of life immortal. Why, when we are familiar with every line, must we still stop and listen when “The Messiah” is playing? Because every note was born of a man’s love for his God, and we hear it. Try this experiment: Catch (if you can) someone who loathes Baroque music; play for him any part of Semele, then sit back and watch his polite attention turn to compulsive attention—see your captive become Handel’s captive. Avarice never wrote a good novel; hate did not paint The Birth of Venus; nor did envy reveal to us that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides. Every creation of man’s mind that has withstood the buffeting of time was born of love—love of something or someone. It is possible even to love mathematics.

The history of mankind contains innumerable testaments to the power of love, but none touches the transformation undergone by the otherwise cantankerous St. Paul when he addressed himself to the subject: loving, he wrote of love itself, and he gave us a miracle. Listen:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing . . . .”

After St. Paul, we have done our best, but our best has never come near him.

Love purifies. Suffering never purified anybody; suffering merely intensifies the self-directed drives within us. Any act of love, however—no matter how small—lessens anxiety’s grip, gives us a taste of tomorrow, and eases the yoke of our fears. Love, unlike virtue, is not its own reward. The reward of love is peace of mind, and peace of mind is the end of man’s desiring.

This article was originally published in the April 1961 issue of Vogue and has been edited for the Web.

From: Vogue

Bibliotherapy: Can You Read Yourself Happy?

In a new column for BBC Culture, Hephzibah Anderson explains that it’s not just self-help books that can improve our well-being – fiction can cure us too.

By Hephzibah Anderson
January 6th, 2015
 
For authors of self-help guides, no human problem is too great or too small. Want to become fitter, richer or happier in 2015? There are books for it – shelves upon shelves of them. Hoping for increased efficiency, decisiveness and creativity in the months ahead? There are titles for that too.

As we knuckle down to our New Year’s resolutions, we’ll turn in droves to self-help books, hoping to find our own best selves in their pages. But a book needn’t hector or lecture to leave its imprint. The truth is that all good literature changes us, and a growing body of research suggests you might do better browsing through fiction for support in battling life’s challenges. Think of it less as self-help than ‘shelf help’.

Reading has been proven to sharpen analytical thinking, enabling us to better discern patterns – a handy tool when it comes to the often  baffling behaviour of ourselves and others. But fiction in particular can make you more socially able and empathetic. Last year, the Journal of Applied Social Psychology published a paper showing how reading Harry Potter made young people in the UK and Italy more positively disposed towards stigmatised minorities such as refugees. And in 2013, psychologists at the New School for Social Research found that literary fiction enhanced people’s ability to register and read others’ emotions.

We think of novels as places in which to lose ourselves, but when we emerge, we take with us inspiration from our favourite characters. A 2012 study by researchers at Ohio State University found that this process could actually change a reader’s behaviour. In one experiment, participants strongly identifying with a fictional character who overcame obstacles to vote proved significantly more likely to vote in a real election.

Well-read

They may not promise transformation in seven easy steps, but gripping novels can inform and motivate, short stories can console and trigger self-reflection, and poetry has been shown to engage parts of the brain linked to memory. Sometimes an author helps by simply taking your mind off a problem, immersing you so fully in another’s world and outlook that you transcend yourself, returning recharged and determined.

As Aristotle noted in his Poetics, poetry – by which he meant fiction in general – is more serious than history. While the historian is preoccupied with what happened when, fiction allows us to see what could happen, exercising our imaginations and often our sense of morality along the way.

A story needn’t lift your heart in order to lift your mood. As author Jane Smiley confides in Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, “Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book”. Experiencing the trials and tribulations of a fictional character can even open us up to problems we’ve been ignoring, sparking rewarding conversations – or offering a way into one that’s proving daunting or difficult. And whatever the fix you find yourself in, there’s always a book to remind you that others have been there before, it’s just a question of finding it.

A reading cure

That’s where bibliotherapy comes in. Practised around the world by psychologists, social workers, and counselors along with librarians, it’s become something of a buzzword in the past few years, drawing scholarly researchers and bloggers alike. Alain de Botton’s London-based School of Life even has a quartet of resident ‘bibliotherapists’, including Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, whose book The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies is a thrifty alternative to the school’s £80 ($120) consultations.

Yet the notion of books as remedies for emotional disorders isn’t as new-fangled as you might imagine. The ancient Greeks posted signs above library doors, informing readers that they were entering a healing place for the soul. And in the 19th Century, doctors and psychiatric nurses doled out everything from the Bible to travel literature and works in ancient languages.

Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary first acknowledged bibliotherapy in 1941, defining the term as “the employment of books and the reading of them in the treatment of nervous diseases”, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it first popped up in print in 1920, in Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop.

Set in a world still reeling from World War One, the novel pairs a screwball rom-com involving a young adman and the heiress to a prune empire, with a German plot to blow up the US president. It’s a period piece, really, but its backdrop – a second-hand bookstore in Brooklyn called Parnassus at Home – remains a bibliophile’s paradise, fragrant with the scent of “mellowed paper and leather” and tobacco from the pipe that its owner, Mr Mifflin, puffs away on day and night.

Mifflin is not just a bookseller, though, he’s a “practitioner of bibliotherapy”. As he explains it, “My pleasure is to prescribe books for such patients as drop in here and are willing to tell me their symptoms... There is no one so grateful as the man to whom you have given just the book his soul needed and he never knew it.”

Mifflin already knew what researchers at the University of Sussex have since attempted to quantify: that reading is a more efficacious stress reliever than listening to music, going for a walk or sitting down with a nice cup of tea. After just six minutes with a book – any book – their subjects found stress was reduced by up to 68 per cent. With the right book, that really could be time well spent.

That’s why we’re launching our very own bibliotherapy column. Send us an email to tell us what ails and what irks you, be it broken resolutions or a broken heart, whether you’re feeling lost in life or stuck in your career. I’ll recommend you some books old and new, mostly though not exclusively fiction, that are sure to speak to your predicament, offering insights and encouragement as well as a little escapism. And at the very least, you’ll discover some great new titles. To quote the sign in Mr Mifflin’s bookshop, “Malnutrition of the reading faculty is a serious thing. Let us prescribe for you”.

Source: BBC

African superheroes: 'You don't have to be white to save the world'

For scholars on comic books, African superheroes are an inevitable reaction to a predominantly white cast of caped crusaders. (AFP)

 

By Stephanie Findlay  

Sunday, 24 January 2016

 

In the first issue of "Aje", a Nigerian comic offering a new breed of superheroes strictly from Africa, university student Teni casts a curse on her boyfriend in a rush of jealous rage and purple lightning.

"Koni dara fun o ni yi aye (it will never be better for you in this life)," snarls Teni in Yoruba, a language and one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria.

Teni is the creation of Jide Martins, the founder of Comic Republic, one of a handful of comic startups making African superheroes to rival Iron Man, Batman and Spiderman.

Unlike Storm, a beloved X-Men superhero who is a dual citizen of the United States and the fictional country Wakanda, the superheroes Martins brings to life are born and bred in Africa -- and fight there too.

"In university, I started wondering what it would be like if Superman came to Nigeria," Martins told AFP at his flat in Lagos, where his dining room doubles as a studio for his team of young illustrators.

"People are trying to break away from the norm and find new things to aspire to," Martins said. "You don't have to be white to save the world."

Nigerian names and spandex

In 2013, Martins, a slim 37-year-old with a freckled nose and goatee beard, published his first issue of Guardian Prime, a hero wearing a forest green and snow white super-suit in the colours of the Nigerian flag.

Since then, readership has swelled from 100 an issue to over 28,000.

Despite the 30-plus page comic books being free and only available as a digital download, Martins is able to generate enough money through advertising and spin-off projects, including educational booklets on malaria featuring his characters, to keep the business running.

"People had this idea that African comics had to be with people in traditional clothes, but I don't agree with that," Martins said.

"Let them have Nigerian names, saving people in Nigeria, but let's put them in spandex."

Martins isn't the only one realising the potential of the burgeoning African superhero industry, which adapts the continent's long tradition of voodoo and the occult for a modern-day audience.

Roye Okupe is the creator of E.X.O. -- The Legend of Wale Williams, a graphic novel set in Lagoon City, a futuristic Lagos riddled with corruption and besieged by an extremist insurrection.

Okupe, a 30-year-old who grew up in the Nigerian megacity of 20 million people, saw a market for an African character grounded in reality.

"You're probably not able to name five African superheroes off the top of your head," Okupe said from Washington, where he is based.

"And as much as I love Black Panther, he's from a fictional African country."

At a time when superheroes dominate the international box office, Okupe says Nigerians are uniquely poised to offer alternatives to the waspy roster of Clark Kents and Peter Parkers.

"Ten years ago if you released a superhero from Nigeria, I don't think anybody would care," Okupe said. "But now that it's a popular industry, people want diversity."

'Long overdue'

For scholars on comic books, African superheroes are an inevitable reaction to a predominantly white cast of caped crusaders.

"I think it's long overdue," said Ronald Jackson, co-editor of the 2013 book "Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation".

"As we begin to appreciate other identities, we're going to become increasingly more embracing of the kind of images coming out of African comics.

"What you don't always see front and centre are major spin-offs in terms of movies and television shows. I think that may be the next step for African comics."

Back in the Comic Republic studio, the team of illustrators -- all under 30 -- hope that one day their characters will appear on the silver screen.

They're betting that their African cast, including witches stronger than the Jedi warriors in "Star Wars", will be more than enough to keep international audiences excited.

"You hear about Greek gods like Zeus but no one has heard of Shango, the god of lightning in Yoruba," 23-year-old illustrator Tobe Ezeogu said.

"It's a different take to what people are used to."

Along with Aje and Guardian Prime, Martins and his team have created Avonome, who goes into the spiritual world to fight battles, and Eru, a lecturer at the University of Lagos whose alter ego is modelled on the Yoruba god of fear.

"We're shocked at the way people have received the comics," Martins said. "It's been amazing."

 

Source: Al Arabiya English

PSFK: In Brazil, These Books Double as Subway Tickets

Ticket Books function as a train ride pass and aim to encourage reading in Brazil.

by Leah Gonzalez
23 November 2015

People only read an average of about two books a year in Brazil. To promote reading, Brazil’s biggest pocket book publisher L&PM Editores created a collection of small paperbacks that also work as subway tickets.

L&PM worked with Agência Africa to create the Ticket Books, a collection of ten books with RFID cards built inside the book covers. The hidden RFID cards made the pocket books readable by the turnstile scanners at the subway. Agency Africa also worked with Via Quatro, the company that manages the subways, so that the Ticket Books can be made available at the turnstiles at the subway stations.

To celebrate World Book Day last April 23rd, L&PM gave away 10,000 books for free at subway stations across Sao Paulo. Each book came with ten free trips. When all ten trips have been used up, users can recharge them via the Ticket Books website and use them again or gift them to a friend to encourage even more people to read. The project was so successful that L&PM expanded the project to other cities in Brazil.

The Ticket Books collection included ten titles: Peanuts: Friendship. That’s What Friends Are For by Charles M. Schulz, Garfield: Sorry by Jim Davis, Hundred Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of Baskerville by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Murder Alley by Agatha Christie, Chives In Trouble! by Mauricio de Sousa, and Quintana Pocket by Mario Quintana. The books also featured cover art inspired by subway maps.

The Ticket Books campaign was awarded three trophies at the Cannes Lions Festival – Silver Lion for the category Promo, Silver Lion for the category Outdoor, and a Bronze Lion for the category Design.

Source: PSFK

Images: L&PM Editores

Northern Life: $113K to Fund Study into Rural Northern Libraries

January 29, 2016

Ontario Library Service North in Sudbury will receive $113,000 over two years to fund a study that will measure the importance and impact that libraries have in small and rural communities across Northern Ontario.

This investment is part of the Ontario Libraries Capacity Fund, a $10 million program to help public libraries support strong, vibrant communities and better meet the changing needs of Ontarians.

The fund supports new projects that can be adapted to suit the needs of other communities and have the potential for a positive impact on public libraries across the province and the people they serve.

The provincial government is supporting 10 new projects in public libraries that will improve services for Ontarians.

“Ontario Library Service North is an integral part of the fabric of our community,” said Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault, in a press release.

“With support from the provincial government for this project, the library will be able to deliver even more benefits and continue to enrich people’s lives here in Sudbury and across the north.”

“In today’s rapidly changing world, public libraries need to continuously innovate and find new ways to meet the needs of their communities,” said Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Michael Coteau.

“I’m proud we are supporting 10 new projects that will help libraries enhance the vital role they play and ensure their programs are having a positive impact. Libraries across the province will be able to learn from the results and knowledge gained through these initiatives.”

Source: Northern Live

Philly.com: The Inside Poop on Librarians' Daily Adventures

The inside poop on librarians' daily adventures

By Roz Warren
January 28, 2016

A man recently defecated in the stairwell at the Ludington Library in Bryn Mawr. The deed and the person’s subsequent exit from the building were both captured by the library’s security cameras, and the local police circulated footage of the perp leaving the library and asked the public to help identify him. (What did he look like? An ordinary, somewhat distracted-looking middle-aged guy. If you passed him on the street you wouldn’t look at him twice.)

It’s safe to say that the library-going public was shocked and horrified by what he did. It’s also safe to say that nobody who has ever worked at a public library was the least bit surprised.

What this man did is a fact of library life, which was reflected in the comments of librarians all over the country when the story was posted on Facebook:

“The public has no idea how often this ... happens.”

“Happened to me just last week. My first week as a branch manager. What a welcome.”

“Wish I could say this has never happened at my library.”

“Two summers ago we had a guy who left daily ‘presents’ all over the building. We never knew where they’d turn up next. Worst game of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ ever.’”

“Everyone who visits our library comments on our beautifully patterned carpet squares. If only they knew why we chose those easily removable squares!”

“I’m laughing because whenever I talk about ‘inappropriate poop’ in my library nobody believes me! Happens wa-a-a-ay more than they imagine.”

Everyone is welcome at the local public library. But not everyone does (or can) behave as well as we’d like.

Both our very youngest and our very oldest patrons will, inevitably, have “accidents.” And then there are the troubled or angry individuals who do this stuff on purpose.

The sad reality is that no place in a public library is immune. Librarians tell of finding “deposits” in the stacks. Under a table in the quiet study room. By the computers. On a comfy chair in the reading nook. In the book drop. Once, mysteriously, right in front of the reference desk on a day when the library was packed.

And do certain patrons play Jackson Pollack on our bathroom walls with their own waste? Alas, yes.

The Ludington Pooper, most assumed, was a troubled individual. Which, when a suspect was identified (Thanks, Internet!) seemed to be the case. Let’s hope he’ll get any help he needs.

Librarians everywhere were happy that he’d been captured on camera, and could be apprehended and stopped. But we all know that this kind of activity remains an ongoing challenge.

My hope is that this incident won’t be (so to speak) a total waste. Perhaps it will raise the public’s consciousness about what being a librarian is actually like. I love my job, but it isn’t always easy.

People imagine that librarians spend their days in a serene, untroubled environment, working with books and chatting with patrons.

“You’re so lucky,” I’ve been told. “You get paid to read!”

We do read. Sometimes.

We also endure your wrath about paying fines, move heaven and Earth to find the reference work you need, spread tarp over the shelves when the ceiling leaks, recommend a movie that will fascinate your daughter’s preteen pals at her sleepover party without offending any of their mothers, attempt to stop you from tearing pages out of our magazines, knock ourselves out to entertain your kids at story time, teach you how to open your own email, listen with sympathy to your confidences and — unfortunately — occasionally have to clean up after you.

You’re welcome.

Roz Warren is a circulation assistant at the Bala Cynwyd Library and the author of “Our Bodies, Our Shelves: A Collection of Library Humor.” roswarren@gmail.com

Source: Philly.com

The Wall Street Journal: In Age of Google, Librarians Get Shelved

In Age of Google, Librarians Get Shelved

A library-science degree can’t compete with online search, but we still have a role.

By Steve Barker
January 10, 2016

The next time you visit a public library and see an older person at the information desk, someone near retirement age, take a good look. You may be seeing the last of a dying breed, the professional librarian.

Years ago, a librarian was someone who held a master’s degree in library science (MLS) issued by a graduate program accredited by the American Library Association. Those of us who attended library schools underwent rigorous preparation, usually assignments that forced us to become familiar with the reference books and research tools that filled the university library.

The Internet changed all that. The library user who used to rely on a librarian for help can now Google his question and find more data in a few seconds than a librarian was able to locate in hours of research.

Many people who work as librarians no longer hold an MLS degree. Public libraries have created a new position called “library associate”—college graduates who do the same work as librarians but receive lower salaries than their MLS counterparts.

The erosion of the MLS degree has been mirrored by the disappearance of library schools from American universities. The University of Chicago and Columbia University once offered the best librarian training programs in the country; both institutions closed their library schools in the early 1990s.

Vanderbilt and the University of Southern California also closed their library schools around the same time. It is still possible to get an MLS degree, but the remaining graduate programs are much smaller and are usually consolidated in other departments or schools.

The mood among some librarians is pessimistic. A New Mexico librarian recently told me: “I spend most of my time making change and showing people how to print from the computer or use the copier. I sure don’t get the reference questions like I used to.”

A colleague in the Washington, D.C., area expressed similar views: “If I didn’t spend my time helping people look for lost keys, wallets, jackets, sweaters, gloves, backpacks, cellphones and laptops, I’m not sure I’d even have a job.”

One bright spot: Some public libraries have created jobs for “technology assistants,” positions filled by tech-savvy young people with community-college degrees and plans for information-technology careers. Libraries can easily justify this new position: Techies are paid less than librarians or library associates and they offer skills the public increasingly needs. The public library of the future might be a computer center, staffed by IT professionals and few books or librarians.

Those of us who hold MLS degrees and are still working recognize the inevitability of these trends. But large segments of the American public struggle with literacy, or want to study for the high-school GED, or are learning English and want to know where they can register to vote. We can still help children with their homework and play a role in our communities, as we have been doing for over a century.

The role for librarians and public libraries is shrinking. But I imagine that in another hundred years, we will still be here, in one form or another.

Mr. Barker is a librarian in the Washington, D.C., area.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The Guardian: The Loss of Libraries is Another Surefire Way to Entrench Inequality

The loss of libraries is another surefire way to entrench inequality

I still have my first library card from when I was a girl from a poor family in west Belfast. Every time I hear of a library closure it hits a nerve.

By Mary O'Hara
January 27, 2016

As someone who grew up in a home without books, no spare cash to buy them and no tradition of reading bedtime stories, my local library offered something unique and indispensable. It’s hard to think of anything that brought me more joy as a primary school-aged child than walking back from the Falls Road library in west Belfast with a bundle of books.

Having a library within walking distance of home was a way for a young girl from a poor background to access the same breadth of reading material as anyone else – at no expense. It stripped away at least some of the disadvantage that came with being from a low-income family. So every time I hear of another library closure – and there were more than 100 last year alone in Scotland, Wales and England, according to official figures – it hits a nerve. The loss of libraries is simply another surefire way to entrench inequality.

From providing books for people of all ages and backgrounds, to kids clubs and hubs for older people, to computer terminals that those with no access to the internet can use to find job vacancies, libraries are about as democratic and diverse as is possible to imagine. When properly funded and resourced they are educational and social anchors in communities everywhere. Yet, despite knowing all this, in the past five years the relentless funding constraints placed on local authorities have seen library budgets slashed by an astounding amount.

Over the course of the last parliament, cuts to services and closures amounted to a 16% reduction in library funding – a whopping £180m less than in 2010. As if that wasn’t enough, last month the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy questioned the long-term sustainability of council-run libraries after its latest calculations confirmed another £50m had been wiped from library budgets across England, Scotland and Wales in the previous 12 months.

Meanwhile, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip) has warned that the billions of pounds of extra funding cuts for local authorities will mean another round of savage reductions in library services, and potentially a stark postcode lottery as councils in poorer areas feel they must jettison library services.

Cilip also pointed out (and this is something often missed when looking just at the numbers) that even where services are still running, many are hollowing out. Libraries are increasingly reliant on volunteers, for example. In fact, between 2009-10 and 2014-15 a quarter of all professional library posts (6,172) disappeared. In many libraries that have survived, book stocks are depleted, opening hours reduced and, in some cases, swipe card access used to save on staff costs.

There has also been a fall in library-run projects targeted at particular groups, including the most marginalised, according to a Cilip straw poll last year. Services designed for disabled people and other disadvantaged groups – the very people who benefit most from libraries – are at risk of further erosion.

Nick Poole, chief executive of Cilip, said libraries “have been seen as an easy target” but that cuts to frontline services are both misguided and short-sighted. “What we’ve got with regards to libraries is a systematic policy of neglect,” he said. Librarians and users have taken to the streets in protest against cuts, while Cilip has launched a campaign, My library by right, as well as a legal challenge to seek clarification of the government’s legal duty under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act to provide a “comprehensive and efficient” service. It has also launched a petition that has so far garnered more than 10,000 signatures.

Nevertheless, libraries remain vulnerable. As the current financial year draws to a close, councils are finalising their budgets, an unenviable task in the current climate. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport insists libraries are modernising and new libraries are being built, for example, in Stafford and Camberwell. A spokeswoman told me that local authorities are repeatedly reminded of their statutory obligations. This is all well and good, but its easy to cherry pick. On the flip side Birmingham’s new multimillion pound flagship library announced last autumn that it would have to stop buying new books because of cuts. And is it really any wonder libraries are being sacrificed when councils are struggling to cover services such as social care?

There is so much more at stake than people not being able to take home some books. The UK’s library service has for decades been one of its great, tangible symbols of social justice and has adapted admirably to changing demand. It is something we should all stand up for, whether we use what’s on offer or not. I still have my first library card. What have we become if in the years ahead far fewer people are able to say the same thing?

Source: The Guardian