Four more Liverpool libraries face closure in fresh round of cuts

"At the end of last year the Libraries Taskforce, which was set up by the government to find a solution to the ailing sector, produced a report outlining a national strategy to turn around services in England and Wales. A £4m innovation fund to help disadvantaged communities was among the schemes outlined in the Libraries Deliver report.

However, campaigners have claimed it is too little too late, with library loans continuing their steep slide downwards, according to Nielsen LibScan. Official figures released by the government at the end of last year revealed library budgets in England and Wales had taken a £25m hit in the year to March 2016. Libraries minister Rob Wilson has vowed to protect them from further cuts, and has this year visited those authorities facing the most swingeing cuts."

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Hard Times Ahead for the Library of Birmingham; Library Journal, 1/19/15

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Hard Times Ahead for the Library of Birmingham:

"The award-winning Library of Birmingham (LB), which garnered applause and approval across the U.K. when it was built in 2013, is about to fall on hard times. After opening to great fanfare a little over a year ago, the library has been finding it hard to keep up with costs, citing a lack of private sponsorship and the Birmingham City Council’s (BCC) failure to raise promised money from land sales. Then at the end of 2014 the BCC announced a round of austerity measures that will cut some £72 million in funding for the arts, parks and recreation, care services, cemeteries, and children’s care services for 2015–16. Approximately £1.5 million will be cut from LB’s annual £10 million operating costs, meaning that 100 of the library’s 188 staff could be eliminated, and its hours reduced from 73 to 40 per week.
Recent reports from the U.K. paint a dire picture of the state of the libraries across the country."