THE FOLLOWING POST IS TAKEN FROM CANDY GOURLAY'S AND TERI TERRY'S BLOG - NOTES FROM THE SLUSHPILE.
THEY HAVE KINDLY ALLOWED ME TO SHARE THEIR POST WITH MY READERS.
Bye Bye Libraries. Bye Bye Civilization.
That's the gist of Catherine Bennett's piece for the Guardian, listing all the closures expected in the coming government cost-cutting exercise.
'Of course, for the almost 250 libraries already earmarked for closure, their role in the happiness supply chain is probably irrelevant. By the time experts have established that, where the alleviation of ignorance, illiteracy, isolation, helplessness, unemployment, infirmity, boredom, neglect and poverty are concerned, libraries do, after all, offer something culturally irreplaceable, they will be gone. It is becoming clear that Mr Cameron's government will do nothing to protect them.'
Anyone who loves reading (or writing) will want to bang their heads on the wall if they read the comments below the piece.
Somewhere down below all the trolls was a comment from Michael Rosen, our Children's Laureate for 2007 to 2009. And I thought it would be a public service to highlight it here.
I hope Margaret Hodge, Ed Vaizey, Ed Balls, and Vernon Cloaker have google alerts on their names so that they can read this and blush (I enlarge your names in case you're as short-sighted as your policies). Shame on you.
Here is Michael Rosen's comment:
Michael Rosen
Books have become optional extras in schools. They've been sidelined by ITC and worksheets. There is now a generation of young teachers who have been through teacher training with no more than a few minutes of training in children's literature and little or no work on why it's important for all children to read widely and often and for pleasure.
So, what we have is the notion that there isn't time to read whole books, there isn't time to help all children browse and read and keep reading - but there is time to do worksheets on different aspects of 'literacy'. And yet, the people running education know full well that children who read widely and often and for pleasure find it much easier to grasp the curriculum as a whole. There is an international study showing this.
What does this have to do with libraries? If the government (or the last one) had felt willing, all they needed to do was formalise the link between schools and libraries. They could have required every sc
Good for you Tracy - get involved people PLEASE - some ideas how in the comments on my blog: http://mrsbung.wordpress.com/
thank YOU, tracy!