The good news is that libraries are getting £80m of lottery money. The bad news is that they can't spend it on books
Marcel Berlins
Tue 24 Jan 2006 19.06 EST First published on Tue 24 Jan 2006 19.06 EST
What is the purpose of a library? I've been desperately clinging on to the ancient principle that the borrowing of books plays a central part, but I can no longer sustain that ludicrously outdated theory. I realised my profound misunderstanding of a library's function when I read the latest brochure of the Big Lottery Fund, with its programme for the distribution of £2.3bn of lottery monies.
Up to £80m is earmarked for libraries. Oh good, I thought naively, they really need the money. There was a teensy-weensy catch. None of the cash - not a penny - was to be spent on books. The brochure didn't actually put it quite that way. It merely outlined that the £80m was to go on "the development of a number of flagship community libraries. These will provide a place for lifelong learning within disadvantaged areas. It includes a wider range of activities, roles and partners than those traditionally provided by most libraries. This will help to develop their potential to offer a focus for community activity and development by widening their traditional role and providing a community resource."
I fastened on the word "learning". Might that not, just conceivably, ever so slightly, include using a book or two? What a silly thought. Stephen Dunmore, the Big Lottery Fund's chief executive, explained it all. "The whole idea is that libraries provide a focus for community activity, converting the space so that it can be used in a more imaginative way." (Such as removing all the books, perhaps? No, let Dunmore continue.) "Libraries are about books, but there are ways of learning which don't have to be book-based."
In fairness to Dunmore and the Big Lottery Fund, it was restricted by its terms of reference as to how it spent the £2.3bn. The fund has the laudable duty to "improve communities and the lives of people most in need". Fine, but might this not have included the purchase of books and improving the community by improving their reading?
I don't object to libraries being used for community purposes, provided it's not at the expense of their primary function. Alas, books are slowly being sidelined as new social policy imperatives soak up money and effort that were once devoted to the promotion and provision of reading material.
The decline started years ago, when public libraries decided to stock CDs and, more importantly, videos. Inevitably, the budgets for books suffered as the other claims on library funds grew. But videos and DVDs can be taken home easily and cheaply from other places. Books to be borrowed have only one home.
Public libraries are in trouble. Dozens face closure this year, and many more are having to cut their days and hours of opening. They are an easy target for local authorities considering how best to reduce expenditure. And they are barred from seeking national lottery money to fulfil their basic tasks. The government minister responsible, David Lammy, is writing to councils, urging them not to slash library budgets. I fear his pleas will be ignored.
In 1981 Nicholas Reed, secretary of the organisation Exit, formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for aiding and abetting suicide. Exit had been an inspired name. Short, urgent and disquieting, it promised what it delivered - the leaving of life. But the unfavourable publicity associated with Reed's conviction persuaded Exit to return to its more boring but less aggressive original title. It has now decided to change its name yet again. Since Monday, it has been called Dignity in Dying.
This has not pleased doctors and others committed to the provision of palliative care for the terminally ill. For them, dying with dignity means slipping away calmly and free of pain, not having your life brought to an abrupt end, even if you desire such a death. They fear that the concept of dying with dignity will become associated in the public mind with voluntary euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.
Changes of name can be disastrous. In 1994 the Spastics Society, understandably feeling that many people were uneasy about the word spastic, which had become a general insult and playground taunt referring to anyone who was mentally or physically slow or maladroit, spent a great deal of time searching for alternatives, and emerged - inexplicably - with the name Scope.
Other charities seeking to move to the fashionable one-word title had at least come up with a word that had some relevance to their activities or their clients. The Marriage Guidance Bureau, realising that more and more of its work was with unmarried couples, became Relate. The National Association for Mental Health turned into Mind. But what did Scope mean? What was its link with cerebral palsy? The public was confused, many supporters of the organisation were upset and it was widely believed in the charity world that income from donations fell as a result, in spite of an expensive publicity campaign to explain the change (the crassness of which put me off writing it a cheque).
Dignity in Dying doesn't face that kind of problem, although, like Scope, the name doesn't really tell you what it's about. Dignity is an elastic term with a variety of nuances. I would not like to think of it only in the context of premature termination of life. I am uneasy.
I remain much unmoved by the activities of Mark Oaten and the consequential plight of the political party he had the hubristic ambition to lead. What has really worried me, though, is the misuse of English slang that the Oaten fiasco has engendered.
The gentleman-prostitute with whom the MP, unwisely, allegedly chose to have sex was 23 years old. In most newspapers he was described as a rent boy. I think that's wrong. I've always believed that the term applied to children of an age that made it criminal to have sex with them. Until recently the age of consent was 18. Rent boys were therefore 17 and under. That interpretation is followed by some dictionaries. More often, though, rent boy (the American equivalent is chicken) is defined merely as a young male prostitute. But even allowing for that vague meaning, I cannot see how it can be stretched to include a 23-year-old.
This issue makes the future of the Liberal Democrats seems insignificant.
This week Marcel saw 13 (Tzameti), a film directed by Gela Babluani, a 26-year-old Georgian: "Stunning, shocking, disturbing, brilliant - but not for weak hearts or stomachs." Marcel listened to a newly discovered 1945 recording of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker at the Town Hall, New York: "Sublime. Two geniuses at their most inventive."